*J 


OLD  SALEM 


BY  ELEANOR  PUTNAM 


EDITED  BY 

ARLO    BATES 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

<£k  fiitoewiDe  tfrejij?,  damfcriDge 
1899 


Copyright,  1886, 
BY  ARLO  BATES. 

AU  rights  reserved. 


SIXTH    IMPRESSION 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  V.  S.  A. 
Printed  by  II.  O.  lloughton  &  Company. 


For  the  son  too  young  to  remember  her, 
have  been  gathered  these  fragments  of  his 
mother's  work,  broken  by  death. 


202GPS2 


CONTENTS. 

Page 

Introduction 7 

Old  Salem  Shops 27 

A  Salem  Dame-Scbool 43 

Two  Salem  Institutions 6) 

Salem  Cupboards 68 

My  Cousin  the  Captain 705 


INTRODUCTION. 


I. 

T  is  with  unspeakable  tenderness 
and  pain  that  I  attempt  to  gather 
up  the  broken  threads  of  this  un- 
finished web,  but  I  appreciate  that  per- 
sonal feeling  would  be  out  of  place  here, 
and  that  what  I  say  must  be  confined  to 
the  subject  of  this  volume. 

The  first  paper  in  the  brief  collection, 
"Old  Salem  Shops,"  was  written  for  the 
Contributors'  Club  of  the  "  Atlantic  Month- 
ly," a  fact  which  accounts  for  its  brevity. 
The  editor  gave  it  a  place  in  the  body  of 
the  magazine,  and  its  reception  was  suffi- 
ciently kind  to  encourage  the  writing  of 
other  papers  in  the  same  vein.  It  was  the 
writer's  intention  to  publish  a  series  of 


8  Introduction. 

sketches  which  should  afterward  be  put 
together  under  the  title  which  this  volume 
bears,  and  she  had  noted  down  the  sub- 
jects of  several  which  were  destined  never 
to  be  written. 

"  A  Salem  Dame-School "  and  "  Salem 
Cupboards  "  followed  in  the  "  Atlantic  ; " 
"Two  Salem  Institutions"  was  written  for 
"  The  Spinnet,"  a  paper  published  at  a 
Salem  fair;  while  "My  Cousin  the  Cap- 
tain" was  left  a  fragment  at  her  death. 

There  were  in  her  portfolio  few  notes, 
it  being  her  custom  to  depend  upon  her 
remarkable  memory  almost  entirely,  but 
she  had  in  conversation  spoken  of  many  of 
the  things  which  it  was  her  wish  to  include 
in  these  sketches  of  the  quaint  old  town 
which  she  loved  and  where  now  her  grave 
is  made. 

The  subjects  she  had  set  down  were: 
"The  Marine  Museum,"  where  "it  was  as 
if  each  sea-captain  had  lounged  in  and 
hustled  down  his  contributions  in  any  con- 
venient vacant  space,"  "Derby  and  Char- 


Introduction.  g 

ter  Streets,"  "Old  Burying  Grounds," 
" '  New  Guinea '  and  Witch  Hill,"  and  "The 
Witch  Records  (?) ; "  while  besides  these 
she  spoke  with  the  most  genuine  tenderness 
of  a  paper  she  wished  to  write  on  "  Salem 
Gentlewomen."  There  was  also  some  talk 
of  a  sketch  of  "  Salem  Oddities,"  to  include 
some  notice  of  "  Billy  Cook "  and  other 
erratic  individuals ;  and  she  wrote  thus 
much  upon  "  The  Bundle  Handkerchief :  " 

"  The  bundle  handkerchief  is  as  essential 
a  figure  in  Salem  history  as  the  witches 
themselves." 

"  My  Cousin  the  Captain,"  upon  which 
she  was  engaged  when  she  laid  down  for- 
ever her  pen,  was  in  a  vein  in  which,  from 
her  extreme  fondness  for  all  things  nau- 
tical, she  delighted  especially.  The  fascina- 
tion of  the  sea  was  strong  upon  her,  and 
in  some  of  her  magazine  stories  she  has 
shown  how  lively  was  her  interest  in  all 
that  pertains  to  the  life  of  a  mariner. 
There  is  in  the  history  of  Salem  enough 
of"  nautical  romance  to  excite  the  most 


10  Introduction. 

sluggish  imagination,  and  far  more  one  so 
responsive  as  was  hers.  There  is  an  irre- 
sistible suggestiveness  in  the  record  of  the 
voyages  of  Salem  vessels  to  cannibal  Fe- 
jee,  to  Zanzibar,  to  Mauritius,  to  Surinam, 
to  Madagascar,  to  Russia,  and  to  Calcutta. 
The  fancy  is  aroused  by  the  simple  enu- 
meration of  the  cargoes  the  ships  brought 
from  far  over- seas  :  "  Wine  and  prunes  ; " 
"nutmegs,  mace  and  cinnamon  ;"  "raisins, 
almonds  and  sweet  wines  ;  "  "  palm  -  oil, 
gum  copal  and  ivory ;  "  "sugar,  indigo  and 
spices  ; "  or  the  drolly  incongruous  mix- 
ture, "  gin,  cheese  and  steel,"  brought  by 
the  brig  Minerva  from  Amsterdam.  There 
is,  too,  an  opulence  in  the  amounts  paid 
for  tariff  —  the  Sumatra,  a  ship  of  but  287 
tons  burden,  on  three  cargoes  from  Canton 
handed  over  duties  of  $128,363.13,  $138,- 
480.34  and  $140,761.96  —  which  throws 
a  sort  of  halo  of  magnificent  and  fabulous 
wealth  over  even  this  prosaic  side  of  the 
marine  history  of  the  old  town.  The  se- 
cret voyages  of  Captain  Jonathan  Carnes 


Introduction.  i  r 

to  Sumatra,  moreover,  with  an  allusion  to 
which  "  My  Cousin  the  Captain  "  so  abrupt- 
ly closes ;  the  messages  from  Captain  Ea- 
gleston,  who  in  Southern  seas  caught  sev- 
eral albatrosses,  fastened  to  the  neck  of 
each  a  quill  in  which  was  a  slip  of  paper, 
bearing  the  words,  "  Ship  Leonidas,  of  Sa- 
lem, bound  for  New  Zealand,"  and  by 
means  of  a  French  vessel  which  recaptured 
one  of  the  birds  off  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  hundreds  of  miles  away,  sent  tidings 
to  his  friends  at  home,  who  during  the  six 
months  that  had  elapsed  since  his  sailing 
had  received  no  news  of  him ;  the  robbery 
of  the  Mexican  by  the  Spanish  pirate 
Pinda,  with  the  unsuccessful  attempt  to 
burn  alive  the  imprisoned  crew ;  the  adven- 
tures of  the  Charles  Daggett  among  the 
treacherous  cannibals  in  Fejee,  and  in  trans- 
porting the  Pitcairn  islanders  from  "sen- 
sual Tahiti "  to  their  former  home,  —  all 
these  and  many  another  wild  tale  of  adven- 
ture, peril,  and  shipwreck  might  be  com- 
bined to  form  a  most  thrilling  chapter.  It 


12  Introduction. 

is  no  wonder  that  one  who  loved  both  Sa- 
lem and  the  sea  should  be  moved  by  such 
a  history. 

The  sketch  of  Derby  Street  was  one  of 
the  first  projected,  but  there  are  scarcely 
any  notes  for  it.  In  it  was  to  figure  the 
house  of  Mr.  Forrester,  where  upon  the 
parlor  walls  were  painted  scenes  from  the 
life  of  the  owner,  showing  his  rise  from 
poverty  to  grandeur ;  the  place  of  his  birth, 
a  humble  cottage  in  Ireland  ;  with  his  vari- 
ous places  of  business,  the  Salem  wharves 
and  the  vessels  which  had  brought  his 
merchandise  to  them.  The  Old  Ladies' 
Home,  too,  was  to  be  spoken  of,  with  rem- 
iniscences of  certain  of  its  inmates  whose 
memories  took  hold  upon  the  romantic  and 
palmy  days  of  the  town.  And  there  was  to 
be  a  sketch  of  the  strange  old  shop  of  a 
Sol  Gibbs  like  instrument  maker,  which 
stood  upon  a  corner  of  Derby  Street, 
wherein  were  the  relics  of  many  a  good 
ship  and  many  a  voyage  ;  where  among 
quaint  rubbish  from  all  over  the  world  an- 


Introduction.  13 

cient  mariners  sat  and  gossiped  garru- 
lously, in  endless  review  of  their  past  and 
tireless  bewailings  of  the  degeneracy  of 
the  present ;  where  antique  chronometers 
ticked  patiently,  awaiting  the  return  of 
owners  whose  bones  were  bleaching  on  the 
sands  of  islands  in  seas  of  the  under  world 
or  "  suffering  a  sea  change "  in  caves  be- 
neath some  ocean  near  the  poles  ;  where 
the  wizened  proprietor  and  the  storm-beaten 
antiques  who  consorted  with  him  were  ir- 
resistibly suggestive  of  the  mummies  some 
adventurous  Salem  captain,  perhaps  one  of 
these,  had  brought  from  Peru  ;  where  time 
had  no  value  save  as  its  measure  served 
to  test  the  accuracy  of  venerable  time- 
pieces ;  and  where  the  quadrants,  the  sex- 
tants, and  the  compasses  reposing  in  shabby 
cases  upon  the  dusty  shelves  would  not 
have  been  out  of  place  on  the  deck  of  the 
Flying  Dutchman  or  the  Dead  Ship  of 
Harpswell.  "  If  fine  old  Leisure  is  dead," 
runs  one  of  the  scanty  notes,  "surely  he 
spent  his  last  days  in  Salem  ; "  and  in  this 


14  Introduction. 

quaint  nook  good  old  Leisure  may  well 
have  dreamed  through  his  placid  dotage. 
In  the  sketch  of  Derby  Street,  too,  it  is 
to  be  supposed  there  would  have  been 
mention  of  the  famous  Custom  House  in 
which  Hawthorne  wrote,  and  where  he 
feigned  to  have  found  the  manuscript  of 
that  greatest  of  all  American  books,  "  The 
Scarlet  Letter  ; "  while  it  was  no  less  in- 
tended to  picture  the  dusky  sail-lofts,  fra- 
grant with  the  smell  of  new  canvas  and 
of  tar,  where  were  stitched  on  the  smooth 
floor  the  great  white  sheets  that  were  to 
be  the  wings  of  many  a  craft  more  stout 
than  even  the  strong-penned  albatross,  and 
were  to  be  mirrored  in  the  waves  of  har- 
bors as  far  asunder  as  the  world  is  wide. 
The  writer  of  these  sketches  spoke  more 
than  once  of  the  suggestive  charm  of  these 
sail-lofts,  where  men  sat  upon  the  floor  like 
Turks,  sewing,  with  their  thimbles  curi- 
ously fastened  in  the  middle  of  their  palms, 
and  where  the  children  went  for  bunches  of 
"  thrums,"  to  be  used  at  home  for  tying  up 


Introduction.  75 

bundles.  Lifted  above  the  stir  of  Derby 
Street,  the  silence  of  the  loft  must  have 
been  doubly  impressive,  and  have  accorded 
well  with  the  softened  light  which  fell 
through  small  dusty  panes,  to  be  reflected 
from  the  polished  floor  and  great  snowy 
sails. 

But  most  of  all  would  this  paper  have 
been  likely  to  deal  with  the  indefinable 
charm  of  the  days  when  Derby  Street  was 
alive  with  bustle  and  excitement ;  when 
swarthy  sailors  were  grouped  at  the  cor- 
ners, or  sat  smoking  before  the  doors  of 
their  boarding-houses,  their  ears  adorned 
with  gold  rings,  and  their  hands  and  wrists 
profusely  illustrated  with  uncouth  designs 
in  India  ink  ;  when  every  shop  window 
was  a  museum  of  odd  trifles  from  the  Ori- 
ent, and  the  very  air  was  thick  with  a 
sense  of  excitement  and  of  mystery. 

Of  what  would  have  been  included  in 
the  other  papers  one  may  conjecture,  but 
beyond  the  fact  that  "The  Bundle  Hand- 
kerckief  "  was  to  show  the  staid  people  of 


1 6  Introduction. 

Salem  carrying  home  in  that  useful  article 
their  weekly  baked  beans  and  brown  bread, 
and  equally  their  mental  food  in  the  shape 
of  books  from  the  Athenaeum,  or,  indeed, 
for  that  matter,  anything  that  they  ever 
had  to  carry  home  at  all ;  and  that  it  was 
to  give  a  half-humorous  and  half-pathetic 
history  of  an  old  gentleman  not  unlike  him 
who  figures  in  "  The  Last  Leaf,"  there  is 
nothing  that  can  be  said  authoritatively. 

II. 

She  who  wrote  under  the  name  of  Elea- 
nor Putnam  —  a  name  which  was  in  truth 
borne  by  her  great-grandmother  in  maid- 
enhood—  went  to  live  in  Salem  in  1865, 
being  then  nine  years  old.  Her  ances- 
tors had  dwelt  there  almost  from  the 
foundation  of  the  town,  and  like  all  genu- 
ine Salem  families  cherished  that  feeling 
of  local  pride  and  attachment  which  left  so 
strong  a  mark  upon  her  character.  Half 
a  dozen  years  she  lived  here  before  the 
family  moved  temporarily  to  the  West,  in 


Introduction.  77 

search  of  health  for  the  mother.  In  that 
time  she  attended  the  dame-school  she  has 
described,  spent  her  pennies  at  the  quaint 
shops  she  has  pictured,  and  stored  in  a 
memory  which  was  wonderful  for  its  fidel- 
ity and  its  exactness  a  thousand  details  of 
which  we  now  shall  have  no  record. 

She  was  naturally  not  a  little  amused 
when  a  Boston  journal  commented  upon 
her  second  "  Atlantic  "  paper :  "  Eleanor 
Putnam  describes  a  Salem  dame-school  of 
fifty  or  sixty  years  ago  in  a  charming  es- 
say." The  truth  is,  however,  that  Salem 
forms  a  sort  of  eddy,  deliciously  shady  and 
quiet,  beside  the  rushing  stream  of  modern 
progress,  and  the  state  of  things  existing 
there  a  score  of  years  ago  was  similar  to 
that  which  passed  away  half  a  century 
since  in  more  progressive  communities. 

III. 

I  cannot  deny  myself  the  pleasure  of 
quoting  here  from  two  letters,  both  writ- 
ten-by  persons  unaware  of  the  identity  of 


1  8  Introduction. 

Eleanor  Putnam,  and  both  total  strangers 
to  her.  The  first  is  of  interest  as  showing 
the  kindly  and  generous  appreciation  of  a 
man  of  letters,  who  has  himself,  unhappily 
for  literature,  passed  beyond  all  earthly 
work  ;  the  second  as  proving  how  truthful 
are  the  pictures  these  essays  present. 


335  EAST  17™  STREET, 
STUYVESANT  SQUARE. 

DEAR  Miss  PUTNAM  : 

Pray  allow  me  the  pleasure  of  expressing  to 
you  my  great  admiration  and  enjoyment  of 
your  "  Old  Salem  Shops  "  in  the  "  Atlantic  "  for 
September,  which  I  spoke  of  often  to  friends 
at  the  time  of  its  appearance.  I  am  led  to  re- 
vert to  it  now  by  having  recently  read  Miss 
Mitford's  "  Our  Village  "  and  "  Belford  Regis." 
These  I  heard  spoken  of  in  my  boyhood,  when 
they  were  in  great  favor  ;  but  I  never  saw  them 
until  lately  among  a  heap  of  books  with  which 
I  beguiled  hours  of  illness.  I  was  reminded 
at  once  of  your  sketch,  —  say,  rather,  highly  fin- 
ished genre-picture,  —  and  could  not  but  think 
of  its  superiority,  —  superiority  in  everything, 
in  style,  in  vivid  portraiture,  in  gentle  humor. 


Introduction.  jg 

And  then  I  thought  that  I  would  venture  to 
suggest  to  you  that  you  should  write  and  pub- 
lish a  group  of  such  pictures  of  the  now  — 
alas!  —  fading  New  England  life.  They  could 
not  but  be  welcome  ;  and  they  would  have  at 
least  one  admiring  and  grateful  reader. 
Sincerely  yours, 

RICH.  GRANT  WHITE. 
Sunday,  2d  Oct.  '84. 

Of  the  second  letter  I  have  let  the  per- 
sonalities remain,  because  they  concern 
only  the  dead  and  can  do  no  harm. 

BOSTON,  Feb.  20,  1886. 

To  THE  LADY  WHO  SIGNS  HERSELF  ELEANOR 
PUTNAM. 

I  have  often  thought  of  asking  your  proper 
address  that  I  might  thank  you  for  the  charm- 
ing tales  about  dear  old  Salem ;  but  the  Feb- 
ruary number  of  the  "  Atlantic  "  "  Salem  Cup- 
boards" is  too  much  for  me,  and  I  cannot 
delay  thanking  you,  and  saying  what  delight 
I  have  taken  in  it.  I  trust  you  will  pardon 
the  liberty  I  take  in  addressing  you,  though  I 
am  a.  stranger,  for  it  renews  my  youth,  makes 


2o  Introduction. 

my  blood  thrill,  and  my  heart  beat  when  I 
recall  my  early  home  and  see  it  so  faithfully 
described. 

The  Hersey  Derbys  were  my  first  cousins. 
The  old  house  contained  stores  of  cut  glass, 
such  as  you  describe,  which  was  preferred  to 
silver  in  those  days.  Aunt  Hersey  had  much 
humor  and  was  a  mimic.  I  remember  her 
coming  into  our  house  on  Court  Street  one 
day  and  describing  a  call  at  old  Mrs.  B.'s  shop. 
Mary  and  Nancy  were  in  the  store.  How  per- 
fectly I  remember  them !  Severe,  staid  and 
formal ;  talking  slowly  and  whining  over  their 
private  affairs  even  before  customers.  Mary 
would  say :  "  Mother,  Miss  So-and-so  is  com- 
ing to  dinner ;  what  shall  we  have  for  her  ? " 
After  due  deliberation,  the  old  lady  would 
squeak  out :  "  Coffee  and  nimble-cake  is  a  very 
pretty  dinner,  Mary."  And  so  it  was  settled. 

The  old  cupboard  is  all  so  natural.  At  my 
father's  we  had  stores  of  the  ginger  in  blue  and 
wickerwork,  and  on  the  upper  shelf  a  sticky 
fork  might  often  be  seen.  I  remember  mamma, 
to  shame  me,  once  put  the  jar  and  fork  on  my 
pillow,  but  I,  in  triumph,  transferred  it  to  my 
closet  and  feasted  on  it  at  will. 


Introduction.  21 

I   remember   well   the  rock  candy  in  such 
great  quantities  ;  and  mamma  had  a  huge  box 
of  maccaroni  and  vermicelli  from  Leghorn  in 
every  variety  of  form,  and  as  they  said  :  — 
"  A  box  of  such  enormous  size 
Great  Holyoke's  years  would  not  suffice 
To  eat  it  all  before  she  dies." 

I  have  now  some  dainty  relics,  a  needle-book 
with  drawings  in  India  ink,  — bee-hive,  etc., 
most  delicately  done,  —  and  tender  mottoes. 

In  Mr.  Hoppin's  "  Auton  House "  I  see 
again  our  nursery :  the  back  of  the  fire-place 
in  iron  with  a  pot  of  tulips  cast  on  it  and  the 
sides  always  kept  so  nice  with  redding;  and  the 
smell  of  the  herbs  in  the  closet  and  the  row  of 
bottles  that  we  would  uncork  and  sniff  till  we 
came  to  paregoric,  that  would  ease  our  pain. 

I  have  rambled  on,  but  I  have  enjoyed  it  all 
so  much ;  the  "  Gibraltars  and  Black-Jacks," 
all  that  you  have  given  us,  and  long  for  more. 

Excuse  my  venturing  to  address  you.  I 
have  been  unable  to  walk  for  sixteen  years, 
am  seventy-nine  years  old,  and  old  age  may  be 
pardoned  for  being  garrulous.  ...  I  am  the 
«ast  of  my  line,  not  even  a  cousin  left 
I  am  your  friend, 


22  Introduction. 


IV. 

There  is  perhaps  no  excuse  for  adding 
here  the  following  fragments,  since  they 
have  no  connection  with  the  subject  of  this 
little  volume.  They  seem  to  me  worth 
preserving,  however,  and  while  I  have  de- 
nied myself  the  pleasure  of  writing  a  sketch 
of  my  wife's  life,  lest  it  might  seem  an 
effort  forcibly  to  claim  attention  which  she 
unhappily  had  not  lived  long  enough  to 
win,  it  -does  not  appear  so  wholly  out  of 
place  to  insert  these  few  extracts,  which 
may  help  such  readers  as  care  to  do  so  the 
better  to  form  a  correct  estimate  of  her 
powers.  The  habit,  already  alluded  to,  of 
depending  upon  memory,  has  reduced  her 
note-books  to  the  most  melancholy  brevity. 
From  what  there  is  I  have  made  a  few  se- 
lections which  seem  to  me  to  show  her 
delicate  humor,  close  observation,  and  fe- 
licitous diction. 


Introduction.  2) 

"  Most  of  us  would  read  our  own  caricatures 
with  bland  unconsciousness  and  be  immensely 
amused  thereat." 

"  Apples  all  gnarled  and  twisted,  as  if  their 
faces  were  drawn  awry  and  puckered  and 
pursed  up  by  their  own  sourness." 

"  One  may  say  hard  words  of  her,  but  not  to 
her." 

"  I  have  often  noticed  in  deserted  ship-yards 
the  flights  of  stairs  which  once  led  up  to  the 
vessel's  deck,  but  which  now,  the  vessel  having 
slipped  the  ways  and  sailed  to  foreign  shores, 
lead  to  nowhere  and  stop  abruptly  in  mid-air, 
as  if  —  like  the  ladder  in  the  vision  of  Jacob  of 
old  —  some  one  had  started  to  build  steps  to 
heaven,  but  had  failed  and  stopped,  discouraged 
long  ere  he  attained  his  end." 

"  He  had  the  face  of  a  young  Greek  god ; 
as  for  his  soul,  — well,  perhaps  we  can  say  no 
worse  of  him  than  that  he  had  also  the  soul  of 
a  young  Greek  god." 

"  She  said  she  did  it  for  the  best,  but  things 
which  are  '  done  for  the  best '  are  seldom  pleas- 
ant." 

"  On  Kneeland  Street  about  noon  of  a  burn- 


24  Introduction. 

ing  July  day,  an  Italian  wine-seller  sat  at  the 
door  of  his  little  shop.  The  old  swing  door 
behind  him  was  of  a  cotton  which  had  been 
originally  of  a  vivid  orange,  but  which  from 
standing  half-open,  and  thus  meeting  irregularly 
the  rays  of  the  sun,  was  now  exquisitely  shaded 
from  a  dull  cream  tint  on  the  hinge  side  to  the 
original  brilliant  hue  on  the  edge  where  was 
placed  the  latch.  This  door,  made  more  gor- 
geous than  common  by  the  blaze  of  the  sun's 
rays  which  fell  upon  it,  served  as  a  screen 
which  set  off  to  perfection  the  dark  face  of  the 
Italian,  his  shock  of  black  hair,  his  sleepy  dark 
eyes,  his  crisp  bushy  beard,  the  gold  rings  in 
his  ears,  and  his  handsome,  full  throat,  from 
which  the  shirt  was  carelessly  rolled  away. 
He  was  doing  nothing,  and  doing  it  with  a 
thoroughness  only  possible  to  an  Italian  or  an 
African." 

"  That  man  is  not  wise  who  tries  to  induce 
one  woman  to  be  kind  to  another  on  the  ground 
that  she  is  young." 

"  It  was,  I  believe,  what  physicians  call  '  sus. 
spended  animation,'  only  that  in  his  case  the 
suspension  was  chronic." 


Introduction.  25 

"  It  stopped  raining  very  suddenly,  diminish- 
ing from  a  shower  of  heavy  drops  to  a  thin 
mist  of  silver ;  then  the  pearl  gray  tint  of  the 
sky  all  at  once  broke,  and  began  to  sweep 
away  toward  the  northeast  in  long  trailing  lines 
of  opal  and  amber  vapor,  leaving  behind  a 
heaven  blue  and  cool  with  a  pale  radiance  as 
of  early  spring-time." 

"  He  kept  a  secret  as  closely  as  a  new  cone 
holds  its  seeds,  which  are  never  delivered  an 
instant  before  the  appointed  time." 

"  She  had  bent  to  kiss  the  baby,  who  was 
babbling  upon  the  floor,  and  as  she  recovered 
her  standing  position  a  strange  thing  happened. 
She  extended  her  hand  in  recovering  her  bal- 
ance, and  somehow  gave  it  a  twist  which  at 
once  transformed  it  from  its  white  plumpness 
into  the  hand  of  an  old  woman,  smooth  like 
parchment  and  crackled  finely  like  old  china. 
It  passed  like  a  flash  of  lightning.  Had  it 
not  been  that  both  hands  wore  the  same  ring, 
—  a  ruby  set  about  with  diamonds,  —  I  should 
have  thought  that  the  two  hands  belonged  to 
different  persons.  It  was  the  hand  of  an  old 
woman,  but  a  woman  in  the  prime  of  life  stood 


26  Introduction. 

before  me,  golden-haired,  pink-cheeked,  bright- 
eyed,  and  vigorous,  smoothing  the  folds  of  her 
satin  gown  and  laughing  like  a  girl  of  twenty." 

"  When  rats  desert  a  sinking  ship  where  do 
they  go  ? " 

"  Story  of  the  Old  Ladies'  Home  in  Derby 
Street.  A  crazy  old  woman,  once  a  beauty 
living  in  the  same  house,  finds  love-letters  hid- 
den behind  a  panel  in  the  wall." 

V. 

Nothing  that  any  one  else  can  write 
will  replace  the  Salem  papers  which  now 
we  have  lost  forever,  and,  however  reluc- 
tantly, it  is  necessary  to  bring  to  a  close 
this  brief  review  of  what  it  was  planned  to 
make  this  volume.  It  must  remain  a 
promise  of  which  death  prevented  the 
fulfillment ;  a  proof,  merely,  of  what  might 
have  been. 

A.  B. 


OLD   SALEM   SHOPS. 


WONDER  how  many  people  have 
memories  as  vivid  as  mine  of  the 
quaint  shops  which  a  score  of 
years  ago  stood  placidly  along  the  quiet 
streets  of  Salem.  In  the  Salem  of  to-day 
there  are  few  innovations.  Not  many 
modern  buildings  have  replaced  the  time- 
honored  landmarks  ;  yet  twenty  years  ago 
Salem,  in  certain  aspects,  was  far  more 
like  an  old  colonial  town  than  it  is  now. 
When  the  proprietor  of  an  old  shop  died 
it  was  seldom  that  a  new  master  entered. 
Nobody  new  ever  came  to  Salem,  and 
everybody  then  living  there  had  already 
his  legitimate  occupation.  The  old  shops, 
lacking  tenants,  went  to  sleep.  Their 
green  shutters  were  closed,  and  they  were 
laid  up  in  ordinary  without  comment  from 
any  one. 


28  Old  Salem  Shops. 

I  remember  one  shop  of  the  variety 
known  in  Salem  as  "button  stores."  It 
was  kept  by  two  quaint  old  sisters,  whose 
family  name  I  never  knew.  We  always 
called  them  Miss  Martha  and  Miss  Sibyl. 
Miss  Martha  was  the  older,  and  sported 
a  magnificent  turban,  of  wonderful  con- 
struction. Miss  Sibyl  wore  caps  and  lit- 
tle wintry  -curls.  Both  had  short-waisted 
gowns,  much  shirred  toward  the  belts,  and 
odd  little  housewives  of  green  leather, 
which  hung  from  their  apron-bindings  by 
green  ribbons. 

Their  wares  were  few  and  faded.  They 
had  a  sparse  collection  of  crewels,  old- 
fashioned  laces,  little  crimped  cakes  of 
white  wax,  and  emery  balls  in  futile  im- 
itation of  strawberries.  They  sold  hand- 
kerchiefs, antiquated  gauze,  and  brocaded 
ribbons,  and  did  embroidery  stamping  for 
ladies  with  much  care  and  deliberation.  I 
remember  being  once  sent  to  take  to  these 
ladies  an  article  which  was  to  be  stamped 
with  a  single  letter.  Miss  Martha  con- 


Old  Salem  Shops.  2g 

suited  at  some  length  with  her  sister,  and 
then,  with  an  air  of  gentle  importance,  said 
to  me,  "Tell  your  mother,  dear,  that  sister 
Sibyl  will  have  it  ready  in  one  week,  cer- 
tainly." 

On  another  occasion  Miss  Sibyl  had 
chanced  to  give  me  a  penny  too  much  in 
change  ;  discovering  which  before  I  was 
well  away,  I  returned  to  the  shop  and  told 
her  of  the  mistake.  Miss  Sibyl  dropped 
the  penny  into  the  little  till,  —  so  slender 
were  the  means  of  these  old  gentlewomen 
that  I  believe  even  a  penny  was  of  im- 
portance to  them,  —  and  in  her  gentle 
voice,  she  asked,  "  What  is  your  name, 
dear?"  and  when  I  told  her  she  replied, 
approvingly,  "Well,  you  are  an  honest 
child,  and  you  may  go  home  and  tell  your 
mother  that  Miss  Sibyl  said  so."  To  this 
commendation  she  added  the  gift  of  a  bit 
of  pink  gauze  ribbon,  brocaded  with  little, 
yellow  and  lavender  leaves,  and  I  returned 
to  my  family  in  a  condition  of  such  con- 
scious virtue  that  I  am  convinced  that  I 


jo  Old  Salem  Shops. 

must  have  been  quite  insufferable  for  some 
days  following. 

The  only  article  in  which  these  ladies 
dealt  which  specially  concerned  us  chil- 
dren was  a  sort  of  gay-colored  beads,  such 
as  were  used  in  making  bags  and  reticules 
—  that  fine  old  bead  embroidery  which 
some  people  show  nowadays  as  the  work 
of  their  great-grandmothers.  These  beads 
were  highly  valued  by  Salem  children,  and 
were  sold  for  a  penny  a  thimbleful.  They 
were  measured  out  in  a  small  mustard- 
spoon  of  yellow  wood,  and  it  took  three 
ladlefuls  to  fill  the  thimble.  I  cannot  for- 
get the  air  of  placid  and  judicial  gravity 
with  which  dear  Miss  Martha  measured 
out  a  cent's  worth  of  beads. 

One  winter  day  Miss  Sibyl  died.  The 
green  shutters  of  the  shop  were  bowed 
with  black  ribbons,  and  a  bit  of  rusty  black 
crape  fluttered  from  the  knob  of  the  half- 
glass  door,  inside  of  which  the  curtains 
were  drawn  as  for  a  Sunday.  For  a  whole 
week  the  shop  was  decorously  closed. 


Old  Salem  Shops.  31 

When  it  was  reopened,  only  Miss  Martha, 
a  little  older  and  grayer  and  more  gently 
serious,  stood  behind  the  scantily  filled 
show-case.  My  mother  went  in  with  me 
that  day  and  bought  some  laces.  Miss 
Martha  folded  each  piece  about  a  card  and 
secured  the  ends  with  pins,  after  her  usual 
careful  fashion,  and  made  out  the  quaint 
little  receipted  bill  with  which  she  always 
insisted  on  furnishing  customers.  As  she 
handed  the  parcel  across  the  counter  she 
answered  a  look  in  my  mother's  eyes. 

"  I  did  not  think  she  would  go  first,"  she 
said,  simply.  "  Sibyl  was  very  young  to 
die." 

In  the  following  autumn  came  Miss 
Martha's  turn  to  go.  Then  the  shutters 
were  closed  forever.  Nobody  took  the 
store.  The  winter  snows  drifted  un- 
checked into  the  narrow  doorway,  and  the 
bit  of  black  crape,  affixed  to  the  latch  by 
friendly  hands,  waved  forlornly  in  the 
chilly  winds  and  shivered  in  the  air,  —  a 
thing  to  affect  a  child  weirdly,  and  to  be 


}2  Old  Salem  Shops. 

hastened  past  with  a  "creepy"  sensation 
in  the  uncertain  grayness  of  a  winter  twi- 
light. 

Another  well-remembered  Salem  shop 
was  the  little  establishment  of  a  certain 
Mrs.  Birmingham.  This  store  was  really 
a  more  joyous  and  favorite  resort  for  chil- 
dren than  the  aristocratic  precincts  of  Miss 
Martha  and  Miss  Sibyl.  One  reason  for 
this  was  that,  while  two  gentler  souls  never 
lived,  these  ladies  belonged  to  a  generation 
when  children  were  kept  in  their  places, 
and  were  to  be  seen  and  not  heard.  This 
fact  flavored  their  kindly  treatment  of 
young  people,  and  we  felt  it.  Then,  too, 
save  for  the  beads,  their  wares  were  not 
attractive  to  little  folk ;  and,  lastly,  there 
was  a  constraint  in  the  prim  neatness,  the 
mystic,  half-perceived  odor  of  some  old 
Indian  perfume,  and  the  general  air  of  de- 
cayed gentility  that  hung  about  the  shop 
of  the  two  old  gentlewomen,  which  per- 
tained not  at  all  to  the  thoroughly  vulgar 
but  alluring  domain  of  Mrs.  Birmingham. 


Old  Salem  Shops.  33 

This  shop  was  not  on  Essex  Street,  the 
street  of  shops,  but  upon  a  quiet  by-way, 
devoted  to  respectable  dwelling-houses, 
and  for  this  reason  we  were  free  to  visit 
Mrs.  Birmingham's  whenever  we  chose. 
It  was  a  tiny  house,  and  I  believe  it  had 
beside  it  a  very  shabby  and  seedy  garden. 
There  were  two  windows  with  green 
wooden  shutters,  and  a  green  door  with 
the  upper  half  of  glass.  This  was  once 
the  fashionable  manner  of  stores  in  Salem. 
Inside  the  door  was  a  step,  down  which 
one  always  fell  incontinently ;  for  even  if 
one  remembered  its  existence,  it  was  so 
narrow  and  the  door  closed  on  its  spring  so 
suddenly  behind  one  that  there  was  no 
choice  but  to  fall.  The  very  name  of  Bir- 
mingham brings  up  the  curious  odor  of 
that  shop.  There  was,  above  all,  a  close 
and  musty  and  attic-like  perfume.  Min- 
gling with  this  were  a  perception  of  cellar 
mould,  a  hint  of  cheese,  a  dash  of  tobacco 
and  cabbage,  a  scent  of  camphor,  a  sus- 
picio"n  of  snuff,  and  a  strong  undercurrent 


}4  Old  Salem  Shops. 

of   warm  black  gown  scorched   by  being 

too  near  an  air-tight  stove. 

Mrs.  Birmingham's  stock  equaled  But- 
tercup's in  variety.  Along  the  floor  in 
front  of  the  left-hand  counter  was  always 
a  row  of  lusty  green  cabbages  and  a  basket 
of  apples.  A  small  glass  show-case  held 
bread  and  buns  and  brick-shaped  sheets  of 
livid  gingerbread.  If  one  came  to  buy 
milk,  Mrs.  Birmingham  dipped  it  from  a 
never  empty  pan  on  the  right-hand  coun- 
ter, wherein  sundry  hapless  flies  went,  like 
Ophelia,  to  a  moist  death.  Then  there 
were  ribbons,  and  cotton  laces  ;  needles, 
pins,  perfumed  soaps,  and  pomatums. 
There  were  a  few  jars  of  red-and-white 
peppermint  and  cinnamon  sticks,  a  box  of 
pink  corncake,  —  which  Mrs.  Birmingham 
conscientiously  refused  to  sell  to  children, 
for  fear  the  coloring  matter  might  be  poi- 
sonous, —  and,  in  season  and  out,  on  a  line 
above  the  right-hand  counter  hung  a  row 
of  those  dismal  creations,  the  valentines 
known  as  "comic."  All  these  articles, 


Old  Salem  Shops.  35 

though  shabby  and  shop-worn  enough, 
probably,  possessed  for  us  children  a 
species  of  fascination.  There  was  a  gla- 
mour in  the  very  smell  before  referred  to, 
and  the  height  of  our  worldly  ambition 
was  to  have  a  shop  "just  like  Mrs.  Bir- 
mingham's." 

The  things  for  which  we  sought  Mrs. 
Birmingham's  were,  however,  chiefly  of 
two  sorts.  The  first  was  a  kind  of  small 
jointed  wooden  doll,  about  three  inches 
high.  In  the  face  these  generally  looked 
like  Mrs.  Birmingham,  and  they  had  little 
red  boots  painted  on  their  stubby  feet. 
These  ugly  little  puppets  cost  a  cent  apiece, 
and  were  much  prized  as  servant  dolls, 
nurses  particularly,  because  their  arms 
would  crook,  and  they  could  be  made  to 
hold  baby  dolls  in  a  rigid  but  highly  sat- 
isfactory manner.  This  flexibility  of  limb 
had  also,  by  the  by,  its  unpleasant  side; 
for  my  brother  Tom  had  a  vicious  habit, 
if  ever  the  baby-house  were  left  unguarded, 
of  bending  the  doll's  joints,  and  leaving 


$6  Old  Salem  Shops. 

the  poor  little  manikins  in  all  manner  of 
ungainly  and  indecorous  attitudes.  An- 
other thing  which  could  be  bought  for  one 
cent  —  the  limit  of  our  purses  when  we 
went  shopping,  and  it  required  six  or  seven 
of  us  to  spend  this  sum  —  was  a  string  of 
curious  little  beads  made  of  red  sealing- 
wax.  They  were  somehow  moulded  on  the 
string  while  warm,  and  could  not  be 
slipped  off.  We  really  did  not  like  them 
very  well,  yet  we  were  always  buying  them, 
and  despite  our  experience  trying  to  slip 
them  from  the  string. 

There  was  a  bell  fastened  to  the  top 
of  Mrs.  Birmingham's  shop  door,  which 
jangled  as  one  precipitately  entered,  and 
summoned  Mrs.  Birmingham  from  an 
inner  room.  Mrs.  Birmingham  was  a  stout 
Irishwoman,  with  black  eyes,  fat  hands, 
and  a  remarkably  fiery  nose.  She  wore  a 
rusty  black  gown  —  the  same,  probably, 
which  was  always  scorching  before  the 
stove  in  the  back  room  —  and  a  false  front 
dark  as  the  raven's  wing.  I  believe  she 


Old  Salem  Shops.  37 

must  have  worn  some  sort  of  cap,  because, 
without  recalling  just  where  she  had  them, 
I  never  think  of  her  without  a  distinct  im- 
pression of  dark  purple  ribbons.  She  was 
by  no  means  an  amiable  woman,  and  in 
serving  us  she  had  a  way  of  casting  our 
pennies  contemptuously  into  the  till  which 
was  humiliating  in  the  extreme.  She  had 
likewise  a  habit  of  never  believing  that  we 
had  a  commission  right,  and  persisted  in 
sending  us  home  to  make  sure  that  we 
were  sent  for  a  ten  and  not  a  five  cent  loaf, 
or  for  one  and  not  two  dozen  of  eggs. 
This  was  painful  and  crushing  to  our 
pride,  but  the  bravest  never  rebelled 
against  Mrs.  Birmingham.  My  brother 
used,  indeed,  to  lurk  around  the  corner  a 
few  minutes,  and  then  return  to  the  shop 
without  having  gone  home ;  but  I  always 
feared  Mrs.  Birmingham's  sharp  black 
eyes,  and  felt  that  a  dies  ires  would  cer- 
tainly come  for  Tom,  when  all  would  be 
discovered. 

Ih  addition  to  the  shop  Mrs.  Birming- 


38  Old  Salem  Shops. 

ham  conducted  an  intelligence  office  in  the 
back  room.  I  never  saw  one  of  the  girls, 
nor  knew  of  any  person's  going  to  Mrs. 
Birmingham  to  seek  intelligence ;  but 
sometimes  we  heard  laughter,  and  very 
often  Mrs.  Birmingham's  deep  bass  voice 
exclaimed,  "  Mike,  be  off  wid  yer  jokin' 
now  !  Le"t  alone  tellin'  stories  til  the  gur- 
rels ! " 

"  Mike "  was  Mr.  Birmingham,  a  one- 
legged  man,  whom  I  never  saw.  We  knew 
that  he  was  one-legged  because  Tom  had 
seen  him,  and  we  secretly  believed  this  to 
be  the  reason  of  Mrs.  Birmingham's 
dressing  in  mourning.  We  children  had 
asked  and  been  told  the  nature  and  pur- 
pose of  an  intelligence  office,  and  yet  there 
was  ever  a  sort  of  uncanny  mystery  about 
that  back  room,  where  unseen  girls 
laughed,  and  Mr.  Birmingham  was  always 
being  told  to  "be  off  wid  his  jokin'." 

But  tempora  mutantur.  Alas  for  Mike  ! 
He  is  off  with  all  joking  now  for  good. 
Alas,  too,  for  Mrs.  Birmingham  !  I  cannot 


Old  Salem  Shops.  39 

believe  that  she  died,  she  was  so  invinci- 
ble ;  but  she  is  gone.  The  rusty  black 
gown,  the  purple  ribbons,  and  the  ruddy 
nose  have  passed  somewhere  into  the  shad- 
ows of  oblivion. 

One  more  shop  there  was  in  which,  at 
a  certain  season,  the  souls  of  the  children 
rejoiced.  It  was  not  much  of  a  shop  at 
ordinary  times  ;  indeed,  it  was  but  a  small 
and  unnoticeable  building  just  around  a 
corner  of  Essex  Street.  It  was  only  at 
holiday  time  that  it  blossomed  out  of  insig- 
nificance. This  was  before  the  days  of  any 
extent  of  holiday  decoration,  and  very  lit- 
tle in  the  way  of  Christmas  trimming  was 
done  by  Salem  tradesmen.  The  season 
was  celebrated  with  decorous  merriment  in 
our  homes,  but  almost  no  church  adorn- 
ment was  seen,  and  most  of  the  shops  re- 
laxed not  from  their  customary  Salem  air 
of  eminent  and  grave  respectability.  No 
butcher  sent  home  a  spray  of  holly  with 
the  goose,  and  no  Christmas  cards  dropped, 
as-now,  from  the  packages  of  baker  or  can- 


40  Old  Salem  Shops. 

dlestick  maker.  It  was  therefore  the  more 
delightful  to  witness  the  annual  transfor- 
mation of  the  little  shop  around  the  Essex 
Street  corner.  The  very  heart  and  soul 
of  Christmastide  must  have  dwelt  in  the 
plump  body  of  the  man  who  kept  that 
shop.  His  wooden  awning  was  converted 
into  a  perfect  arbor,  under  which  the  front 
of  his  little  store  showed  as  an  enchanted 
cavern  of  untold  beauty  ;  a  bower  of  lusty 
greenery,  aglow  at  night  with  the  starry 
brilliance  of  many  candles,  gay  with  the 
scarlet  berries  of  holly,  set  off  by  the 
mystic  mistletoe,  and  rich  with  Aladdin 
treasures  of  sugary  birds  and  beasts,  ropes 
of  snowy  popped  corn,  bewildering  braids, 
twists  and  baskets  of  pink-and-white  sugar, 
golden  oranges,  —  a  rarer  fruit  then  than 
now, — white  grapes  in  luscious  clusters, 
and  bunches  of  those  lovely  cherries  of 
clear  red  barley  candy  with  yellow  broom 
corn  for  stems. 

After  all,  though,  it  was  not  so  much 
that  the  wares  were  more  delightful  than 


Old  Salem  Shops.  41 

those  kept  by  other  folk.  Probably  the 
very  same  things  could  have  been  bought 
at  any  fruit  store.  It  was  simply  that  this 
tiny  shop  and  its  plump,  red-cheeked  owner 
were  overflowing  with  the  subtle  and  joy- 
ous spirit  of  keeping  holiday.  We  children 
used  always  to  call  his  place  "  the  Christ- 
mas shop ; "  and  I  well  remember  the 
thrill  of  joy  which  ran  over  me  when,  re- 
turning from  school  one  afternoon,  I  saw 
my  own  parents  entering  the  jovial  pre- 
cincts. I  sped  home  on  winged  feet  to 
tell  the  other  children  that  "  mother  and 
father  were  in  the  Christmas  shop ; "  and 
we  all  sat  about  the  fire  in  the  twilight 
and  "guessed"  what  they  were  buying, 
and  reveled  in  the  dear  delights  which 
were  to  result  from  a  visit  to  that  treasure 
house. 

Where  is  he  now,  that  child-like  man  who 
loved  the  holidays  ?  The  merry  wight  was 
twenty  years  before  his  time,  but  it  warms 
one's  heart  to  think  of  him  to-day.  Alas, 
a  visit  to  Salem  last  year  showed  his 
wooden  awning  torn  away,  and  in  his  dis- 


42  Old  Salem  Shops. 

mantled  bower  a  dry  and  wizened  stationer 
among  law  books  and  school-room  furnish- 
ings. What  a  direful  change  from  the 
halcyon  days  of  old  !  I  wonder  that  the 
chubby  ghost  of  the  former  owner  does 
not  walk  o'  nights  to  bemoan  the  times 
that  are  no  more. 

The  shop  of  Miss  Martha  and  Miss 
Sibyl,  too,  seemed  to  be  entirely  done 
away  with,  and  Mrs.  Birmingham's,  al- 
though still  standing,  was  but  a  wreck.  I 
would  gladly  have  bought  there,  for  old 
times'  sake,  a  jointed  doll  or  a  string  of 
sealing-wax  beads ;  but  the  green  wooden 
shutters  were  closed,  the  green  door  sunken 
sadly  on  its  hinges,  its  glass  half  grossly 
boarded.  The  grass  grew  high  before  the 
doorstone.  The  mossy  roof  was  concave. 
The  chimney  was  almost  tottering.  The 
little  shop  was  drawing  itself  together  and 
dying ;  asking  no  sympathy  of  the  be- 
holder, but  meeting  its  appointed  fate  with 
that  gray  and  silent  resignation  which 
alone  is  considered  the  proper  thing  in 
Salem  society. 


A  SALEM   DAME-SCHOOL. 

N  English  journal  recently  devoted 
some  space  to  a  discussion  of  the 
so-called  "  dame-school  "  of  the  rus- 
tic district,  and  concluded  that  its  virtue, 
if  indeed  it  possessed  any,  was  of  the 
smallest.  It  appears  from  this  article  that, 
while  the  authorities  urge  the  superior  ben- 
efit and  training  to  be  found  in  the  parish 
schools,  the  villagers,  with  the  doggedness 
of  true  lower-class  ignorance,  persist  in 
sending  their  children  to  the  old  dame,  — 
the  same,  perchance,  who  taught  them 
their  own  letters  thirty  or  forty  years  be- 
fore, and  who  depends  upon  the  pittance 
earned  by  her  labors  to  keep  herself  alive 
and  out  of  the  parish  workhouse. 

Certainly  all  this  is  most  ungrateful  and 
vicious  of  the  peasantry,  and  if  they  were 
a  little  more  intelligent  they  would  see  that 


44  d  Salem  Dame-School. 

they  have  really  no  right  to  cut  off  the 
educational  advantages  of  their  children, 
just  for  the  sake  of  a  snuffy  old  woman, 
who  makes  her  pupils  sing  the  multiplica- 
tion table  through  their  noses,  and  who 
calls  z  "izzard."  It  is,  however,  a  singular 
fact  that  this  conservative  clinging  to  old 
methods  is  not  confined  to  English  plough- 
men, for  it  was  not  long  ago  that  a  well- 
known  American  divine  spoke  very  warm- 
ly, at  a  meeting  of  the  Round  Table  Club, 
in  favor  of  the  old  methods  of  teaching. 
A  lady  of  high  breeding  and  of  rather 
unusual  culture  added  her  opinion,  say- 
ing,— 

"  I  want  my  boy  to  learn  his  letters  ex- 
actly as  I  did,  from  a  primer  laid  upon  his 
teacher's  knee ;  and  I  want  the  letters  to 
be  pointed  out  with  a  great  brass  pin,  as 
mine  were,  and  no  other  way." 

Such  of  us  as  have  ever  been  to  one  of 
these  dame-schools  must,  I  think,  always 
hold  them  in  kindly  and  loving  remem- 
brance, and  particularly  is  this  true  in  re- 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  45 

gard  to  the  dame-schools  of  Salem.  In 
this  ancient  city  these  schools  differed 
from  their  English  counterparts  in  being 
kept  by  gentlewomen  for  the  benefit  of 
well-born  children.  The  lower  classes  at- 
tended the  public  schools.  In  those  days 
it  would  have  been  unutterably  vulgar  to 
allow  one's  children  to  go  to  any  but  a  pri- 
vate school  until  they  were  old  enough  to 
enter  the  higher  grades. 

Perhaps  the  most  exclusive  of  all  these 
private  schools  was  one  kept  by  a  pair 
of  gentlewomen  living  in  the  upper  and 
eminently  respectable  portion  of  Essex 
Street.  Their  name  was  not  Witherspoon, 
but  for  purposes  of  disguise  it  may  be  well 
to  call  it  thus.  The  Misses  Witherspoon's 
school  was  not  opened  to  whomsoever 
might  chance  to  knock.  Only  an  intro- 
duction by  some  person  with  untarnished 
'scutcheon,  who  could  vouch  for  one's  pos- 
session of  an  undoubted  great-grandfather, 
could  gain  admission  to  this  small  but  ar- 
istocratic symposium.  I  have  reason  to 


46  A  Salem  Dame-Scbool. 

believe  that  I  was  not  accepted  without 
a  thorough  examination  of  family  docu- 
ments, and  that  the  scale  was  finally  turned 
in  my  favor  by  the  production  of  an  an- 
cestress who  was  down  in  the  witch  rec- 
ords as  having  testified  against  some  poor 
old  goody  or  other,  and  signed  "Phoebe 
Chandler,  her  -{-  mark."  Once  a  pupil  at 
the  Misses  Witherspoon's  school,  however, 
one's  social  superiority  was  firmly  estab- 
lished forever.  In  after  years  one  might 
elope  with  a  grocer,  become  a  spiritualis- 
tic medium,  or  start  a  woman's  bank,  but 
one  could  never  be  regarded  as  quite  be- 
yond the  pale  who  could  claim  ever  to 
have  been  admitted  to  the  select  circle  at 
the  Misses  Witherspoon's. 

Our  way  to  school  lay  along  the  quieter 
part  of  Essex  Street.  We  always  stopped 
to  sharpen  our  slate-pencils  by  rubbing 
them  upon  the  granite  bases  of  the  great 
columns  before  Mechanic's  Hall,  and  there 
was  one  little  drug  shop  before  which  we 
always  loitered  to  admire  the  crimson  and 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  47 

purple  jars  which  adorned  the  windows. 
The  quaint  little  house  where  the  witches 
were  tried  was  attached  by  one  corner  to 
this  shop.  It  was  a  quiet  and  common- 
place building,  occupied  at  that  time  by  a 
maker  and  mender  of  sun-umbrellas.  It 
stood  back  in  a  green  yard,  and  from  an 
upper  window  projected,  for  a  sign,  a  tri- 
colored  parasol.  There  was  nothing  at  all 
uncanny  about  the  silent,  weather-beaten 
old  house,  yet  we  eyed  it  askance,  and 
once  felt  a  thrill  of  genuine  horror  at  the 
gaunt  apparition  of  a  black  cat  stealing 
with  soft  feet  over  the  gray  roof. 

The  Misses  Witherspoon's  house  faced 
Essex  Street,  but  not  to  ruin  the  front 
stair  carpet  we  always  went  in  by  a  door 
which  opened  into  the  little  side-yard. 
This  brought  us  into  the  kitchen,  from 
which  the  back  stairs  ascended.  In  order 
that  we  might  not  look  profanely  upon  the 
domestic  priestess  of  the  household,  a  long 
curtain  of  gay-colored  patch  was  hung  be- 
side" the  stairway,  and  we  were  further- 


48  A  Salem  Dame-Scbool. 

more  charged  not  to  look  over  the  top  of 
it  when  we  reached  a  height  upon  the 
stairs  which  made  this  possible.  As  a 
natural  result,  the  space  behind  the  cur- 
tain became  a  sort  of  Bluebeard's  Cham- 
ber, and  one  inevitably  did  peep  now  and 
then,  though  one  never  saw  anything  more 
wonderful  than  Miss  Abby  Witherspoon 
wiping  tea-cups. 

The  stairs  led  directly  into  a  little  back 
chamber,  in  which  we  hung  our  outside 
garments,  and  from  this  chamber  we  en- 
tered the  school-room.  This  was  a  low, 
square  apartment  in  the  left-hand  front 
corner  of  the  house,  having  two  windows 
on  Essex  Street,  and  I  think  only  one 
which  looked  upon  the  side-yard.  The 
walls  had  a  wooden  dado  painted  white, 
while  the  paper,  in  brown  and  blue,  re- 
peated a  meaningless  pattern.  There  were 
two  rows  of  single  desks,  with  hard,  slip- 
pery little  yellow  chairs.  These  were  for 
the  girls.  There  was  one  row  of  seats 
for  boys,  —  the  female  sex  was  the  dom- 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  49 

inant  one  at  the  Misses  Witherspoon's, — 
and  that  was  decorously  removed  to  the 
furthest  possible  limit.  The  Misses  With- 
erspoon  had  no  great  liking  for  boys. 
They  regarded  them  always  with  sus- 
picion, as  one  might  a  Norwich  torpedo, 
and  I  do  not  believe  that  they  ever  came 
wholly  to»  consider  it  proper  to  allow  them 
to  attend  the  school  at  all. 

There  were  three  Misses  Witherspoon. 
The  oldest,  Miss  Emily,  was  rather  severe 
in  outward  appearance,  with  an  upright 
figure  and  remarkably  keen  dark  eyes. 
One  fancied  that  she  might  have  been 
handsome  as  a  young  woman,  but  some- 
thing too  sharp  and  clever  with  her  tongue. 
She  taught  arithmetic,  and  put  down  on  a 
little  slate  marks  for  our  misdemeanors.  I 
can  hear  now  the  brisk  tap  of  her  pencil, 
and  the  measured  and  awful  "  Little  girls, 
my  sharp  eye  is  on  you ! "  Sometimes 
this  remark  was  personal  instead  of  gen- 
eral, and  dire  indeed  was  the  shame  which 
overwhelmed  that  one  of  us  whom  she 


50  A  Salem  Dame-Scbool 

named.  Miss  Lucy,  the  second  sister,  was 
not  made  of  such  stuff  as  Miss  Emily. 
She  was  milder  of  face  and  gentler  of 
voice,  and  had  a  kindly,  caressing  way  with 
those  pupils  whose  youth  forced  them  to 
spell  out  their  lessons  from  a  book  upon 
her  knee.  The  third  sister,  Miss  Abby, 
was  the  housekeeper,  and  never  »appeared 
in  the  school-room.  All  the  sisters  wore 
scz.nt-skirted  gowns,  and  their  hair  was 
scalloped  low  over  their  ears  and  turned 
up  oddly  behind  to  a  tight  fastening  of 
shell  combs. 

At  recess  we  did  not  go  to  romp  rudely 
out-of-doors,  but  amused  ourselves  in  the 
house  with  A  Ship  from  Canton  and  The 
Genteel  Lady,  as  became  well-bred  chil- 
dren. An  exception  was  made  in  favor  of 
the  boys,  who  were  told  to  go  out  into  the 
yard  to  shout.  Miss  Emily  seemed  to 
think  that  boys  must  go  somewhere  oc- 
casionally to  shout,  as  a  whale  must  come 
up  to  blow.  The  boys  never  did  shout.  I 
fancy  they  were  too  much  depressed  by 


A  Salem  Dame-SchooL  51 

the  great  gentility  of  everything.  There 
were  but  two  of  them,  and  they  generally 
sat  on  a  deserted  hen-coop  and  banged 
their  heels  and  looked  very  dismal  till  the 
little  bell  tinkled  for  them  to  come  in. 
When  there  had  been  a  fall  of  moist  snow, 
the  boys  would  sometimes  snowball  each 
other  in  a  perfunctory  way,  being  bidden 
to  the  sport  by  Miss  Lucy ;  and  on  such 
occasions  we  of  the  gentler  sex  were  al- 
lowed to  go  and  look  upon  the  stirring 
sight  from  the  back-chamber  window. 

The  elder  of  these  two  boys  was  a  tall, 
very  pale,  light-haired  lad,  who  was  called 
by  Miss  Emily  "  Danyell."  He  had  a 
highly  satisfactory  disease  of  the  eyes, 
which  often  prevented  him  from  studying 
for  an  entire  day,  but  which  was  fortu- 
nately not  aggravated  by  drawing  pictures 
on  the  slate  and  making  Jacob's  ladders. 
On  a  Wednesday,  when  the  girls  all  sewed, 
Danyell  did  a  deed  without  a  name  by 
means  of  four  pins  stuck  into  a  spool  and 
some  bits  of  colored  worsted.  We  heard 


52  A  Salem  Dame-School. 

that  he  was  making  a  lamp-mat  for  his 
aunt,  but  I  fear  it  was  never  finished,  for 
the  other  boy,  one  direful  day,  called  Dan- 
yell  "  a  sissy  knitting  a  night-cap  for  his 
granny,"  and,  although  he  was  obliged  to 
stand  for  some  time  in  a  corner  as  a  pun- 
ishment, I  think  the  iron  of  his  sneering 
words  entered  the  soul  of  Danyell ;  at  all 
events,  the  spool  disappeared. 

This  same  "  other  boy,"  whose  name  has 
entirely  faded  from  my  memory,  was  de- 
cidedly more  masculine  in  character  than 
Danyell.  He  was  a  short,  fat  lad,  and  he 
wore  a  bottle-green  jacket,  which  was  cov- 
ered with  .brass  buttons,  and  fitted  as 
tightly  as  Tommy  Traddles'  own.  His 
hair  was  remarkably  thick,  and'  he  was  a 
very  sullen  boy,  with  a  revengeful  disposi- 
tion. It  was  his  standing  grievance  that 
he  went  to  a  private  school.  He  one  day 
confided  to  me  that  his  cousin,  who  went 
to  the  Broad  Street  school,  had  been 
thrown  down  in  a  foot-ball  rush,  and  had 
had  three  teeth  knocked  in.  He  added 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  53 

that  a  fellow  could  have  some  fun  at  a  pub- 
lic school,  but  that  Miss  Witherspoon's  was 
a  baby-class.  I  did  not  like  this  slur  on 
our  dear  little  school,  and  I  totally  disa- 
greed with  the  sullen  boy  as  to  what  was 
fun.  A  short  time  after  this  Danyell  was 
withdrawn  from  the  Misses  Witherspoon's 
to  go  to  an  academy  somewhere,  and  the 
green-jacketed  boy  was  left  to  sit  in  a 
row  by  himself,  to  go  out  to  shout  alone  at 
recess,  and  to  sit  gloomily  by  himself  on 
the  hen-coop  and  swing  his  heels. 

A  certain  air  of  gentle  good-breeding 
prevailed  at  the  Misses  Witherspoon's 
school,  which  affected  the  children  so  far 
that  quarrels  and  sharp  words  seem  to 
have  been  practically  unknown.  This  may 
have  been  owing  partly  to  the  fact  that  we 
were  always  under  the  eyes  of  our  teach- 
ers, even  at  recess  ;  but  it  is  quite  true 
that  we  were  little  gentlewomen  in  school, 
whatever  we  may  have  been  out  of  it. 
There  are,  for  example,  few  schools  to-day 
where  a  child  made  conspicuous  by  her 


54  A  Salem  Dame-Scbool. 

dress  could  escape  unkindly  jests  and  un- 
timely displays  of  wit  from  her  mates.  It 
chanced  to  be  my  lot  at  this  time  to  be 
arrayed  in  the  cast-off  raiment  of  a  pair  of 
venerable  great-aunts,  whose  taste  in  fab- 
rics was,  to  say  sooth,  a  little  antiquated. 
Accordingly,  while  other  children  wore 
warm-colored  plaids  and  soft  cashmeres  of 
lovely  hues,  I  was  clad  in  gowns  of  dull 
browns  and  smutty  purples,  or,  still  worse, 
in  flowered  chintzes,  which  even  in  those 
days  looked  hopelessly  old-fashioned,  and 
resembled  upholstery  stuffs.  My  rubbers, 
too,  instead  of  being  of  the  shiny,  blue- 
lined  sort  so  dear  to  childish  souls,  were 
literally  what  Miss  Lucy  called  "gum- 
shoes," being  made  of  pure  rubber  spread 
while  hot  over  a  last.  They  had  an  im- 
pression of  a  clover  leaf  stamped  on  each 
toe.  After  a  little  wear  ugly  pits  began  to 
appear  in  the  rubber,  as  if  the  shoes  had 
had  small-pox.  One  side  was  thicker  than 
the  other,  and  when  taken  off  they  closed 
in  a  hateful  way,  and  persisted  in  lying 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  55 

upon  the  side.  I  used  to  think  I  could 
have  borne  the  other  peculiarities  with  res- 
ignation, but  there  was  something  partic- 
ularly aggravating  in  having  one's  rubbers 
shut  up  when  taken  from  the  feet.  Other 
children  had  neat  little  twine  school-satch- 
els, but  I  used  the  old  green  baize  bag  in 
which  my  grandfather  had  carried  his  law 
papers.  It  was  so  long  and  I  so  short  that 
it  nearly  touched  the  ground  as  I  walked, 
and  my  book  and  my  apple  rolled  about 
unpleasantly  in  the  bottom.  In  these  days, 
what  rude  sport  would  not  be  directed  by 
school-girls  against  a  child  with  such  odd 
belongings  !  But  so  perfect  was  the  kindly 
good-breeding  of  the  little  dame-school  that 
I  never  remember  a  smile  or  significant 
glance,  though  I  must  have  been  indeed  an 
odd  and  antiquated  figure. 

Beside  these  invaluable  teachings  of 
kindness  and  courtesy  the  lessons  were 
few  and  simple.  We  read  and  spelled  and 
wrote  copies  on  our  slates.  We  chanted 
the  multiplication  table  to  an  "adapted" 


56  A  Salem  Dame-ScbooL 

Yankee  Doodle.  We  learned  addition  and 
subtraction  by  an  abacus,  which  was  an 
article  like  a  wire  broiler  strung  with  col- 
ored wooden  beads,  and  which  had  the  ef- 
fect of  at  once  destroying  any  possibility 
of  original  effort  on  the  part  of  the  pupil. 
When  we  were  marked  for  any  misde- 
meanor we  had  to  go  to  Miss  Emily  and 
ask  what  we  should  do  to  "  make  up  our 
marks."  Before  doing  this  it  was  the  fash- 
ion to  cry  —  or  pretend  to  cry  —  for  a 
few  moments,  with  one's  head  resting  upon 
the  desk.  I  do  not  think  any  of  us  ever 
really  shed  a  tear,  but  it  was  a  perfunctory 
way  we  had  of  showing  our  sense  of  the 
disgrace  of  having  a  mark.  The  "  making 
up  a  mark"  was  by  no  means  a  heavy 
penance.  It  usually  consisted  of  writing 
one's  name  ten  times,  or  making  some  fig- 
ures, or  "  doing  sums  "  on  a  slate. 

We  recited  in  arithmetic  to  Miss  Emily, 
but  as  we  had  all  sorts  of  odd  books  each 
child  was  in  a  class  by  herself.  Most  of 
the  pupils  had  arithmetics  of  the  compara- 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  57 

tively  modern  sort,  wherein  were  rows  of 
pinks  and  apples,  and  little  sparrows  oblig- 
ingly sitting  on  fences  in  the  twos  and 
threes  necessary  for  teaching  the  first  two 
of  the  four  simple  rules.  My  own  book, 
however,  was  of  a  far  earlier  time,  rum- 
maged out  of  the  attic  for  my  special  use. 
It  was  a  thin,  brown  volume,  with  an  hon- 
est enough  outside,  but  the  contents  were 
of  a  peculiarly  misleading  and  beguiling 
character.  It  opened  with  an  apparently 
artless  tale  of  an  old  woman  whose  name 
was  Jane,  who  lived  "  all  alone  by  herself 
in  a  small  hut  upon  the  lea."  She  was 
further  described  as  being  very  poor,  —  so 
poor  that  she  depended  for  her  living  upon 
selling  the  few  little  things  raised  in  her 
tiny  garden  patch  and  the  eggs  laid  by  her 
three  speckled  hens.  The  wind  blew  about 
her  humble  cot,  and  in  winter  time  often 
drove  the  snow  through  the  cracks  in  the 
old  walls.  Jane  was,  however,  a  good  and 
thrifty  old  woman,  and  did  her  best  to 
make  an  honest  living.  Each  of  her  spec- 


?8  A  Salem  Dame-School. 

kled  hens  laid  her  a  nice  white  egg  every 
day  :  now  how  many  days  would  it  take 
for  old  Jane  to  save  a  dozen  eggs  to 
carry  to  market  ?  All  the  problems  in  the 
book  were  of  this  same  deceitful  sort,  and 
the  way  in  which  the  youthful  attention 
was  ensnared  by  the  semblance  to  a  tale, 
and  then  suddenly  brought  up  by  a  point- 
blank  demand  of  "how  much"  or  "how 
many,"  was  calculated  to  kill  forever  one's 
faith  in  human  nature. 

In  addition  to  our  book  lessons,  we  were 
taught  various  quaint  little  accomplish- 
ments, such  as  courtesying  prettily  and  the 
like,  and  every  Wednesday  Miss  Lucy  in- 
structed us  in  needlework.  A  brother  of 
the  ladies  had  been  a  captain  in  the  East 
India  merchant  service.  We  children  were 
dimly  aware  of  a  never  quite  dissipated 
odor  of  sandal-wood  and  camphor  about 
the  old  house,  —  there  was  always  a  waft 
of  it  when  the  front  entry  door  was  opened, 
—  and  we  believed  that  the  guest  chamber 
contained  much  treasure  in  the  way  of  fans, 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  59 

silks,  and  embroidered  crape  shawls.  We 
never  saw  anything,  however,  except  on 
some  afternoons,  when  we  were  judged  to 
be  especially  deserving,  and  were  rewarded 
by  the  sight  of  a  whale's  tooth  curiously 
carved,  an  ivory-tinted  ostrich  egg,  and  a 
lump  of  golden  amber  in  which  a  tiny 
hapless  fly  was  mysteriously  imprisoned. 
These  treasures,  although  not  at  all  un- 
common in  Salem,  the  seat  of  the  old  East 
India  trade,  yet  had  always  a  mystic  charm 
for  us.  I  recall  now  the  delightful  air  of 
pride  with  which  the  sisters  would  refer  to 
"our  brother,  Captain  Witherspoon,"  and 
the  tone,  slightly  tinged  with  incredulity, 
with  which  they  described  to  us  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  foreign  lands.  I  have 
seen  much  amber  since  that  time,  but  none 
with  the  magic  charm  which  surrounded 
that  bit  held  on  dear  Miss  Lucy's  palm,  or 
seriously  rubbed  upon  Miss  Lucy's  silk 
apron  and  made  to  attract  bits  of  paper 
scattered  on  the  table. 
"  The  one  holiday  which  was  held  in  high 


60  A  Salem  Dame-Scbool. 

favor  by  our  teachers  was  New  Year's  Day. 
Miss  Lucy  told  us  that  her  mother  used  to 
receive  many  visitors  upon  that  day,  and 
that  the  sisters  wished  always  to  keep  it  as 
long  as  she  lived.  At  this  time  it  was  the 
custom  for  two  of  the  pupils  to  visit  the 
homes  of  the  others,  and  collect  a  certain 
small  sum  from  each  as  a  holiday  gift  to 
our  teachers.  This  sum  was  neatly  in- 
closed in  an  envelope,  and  handed  to  Miss 
Emily,  with  a  wish  for  a  happy  New  Year. 
It  was  always  received  with  a  well-bred 
air  of  surprise,  though  the  gift  had  been 
collected  and  presented  in  exactly  the 
same  manner  ever  since  the  school  was 
opened. 

On  the  other  hand,  our  teachers  had  a 
surprise  of  like  sort  for  us.  After  the 
morning  devotions,  we  were  marshaled 
into  an  orderly  line,  and  conducted  down 
the  back  stairs  and  through  the  kitchen  to 
the  door  of  the  sunny  parlor,  where  old 
Madam  Witherspoon  sat.  She  was  a  tiny 
and  rigidly  dignified  old  lady,  in  a  scant 


A  Salem  Dame-School.  61 

black  satin  gown  and  a  white  lace  cap. 
Before  crossing  the  threshold  each  one  of 
us  was  required  to  draw  out  her  dress- 
skirts  correctly,  make  a  courtesy,  and 
say,— 

"  I  wish  you  a  happy  New  Year,  Madam 
Witherspoon." 

To  this  she  replied  by  a  stately  bow. 
Before  her,  upon  a  small  table,  was  ranged 
a  collection  of  gifts,  from  which  we  were 
allowed  to  choose.  The  first  year  I  was  in 
the  school  there  were  knives  and  harmoni- 
cums  for  the  boys,  and  for  the  girls  little 
cabinets  painted  red  and  quite  sticky  with 
varnish,  and  dolls  so  stiff  and  antiquated 
and  with  such  old-fashioned  faces  that  I 
cannot  imagine  where  they  were  discov- 
ered, unless  the  old  ladies  had  conjured 
them  out  of  the  memory  of  some  shop  of 
their  childhood.  There  clung  to  these 
gifts,  though  we  had  prettier  ones  at  home, 
the  same  aroma  of  quaint  delight  which  ex- 
haled from  everything  about  the  charming 
old  house.  After  this  ceremony  we  were 


62  A  Salem  Dame-School. 

graciously  dismissed,  and  the  rest  of  the 
day  was  our  own. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  true  that  there  was 
no  great  wisdom  to  be  gained  at  the  little 
dame-school.  Our  lessons  were  few  and 
simple,  and  the  methods  were  undoubtedly 
old-fashioned.  However,  what  we  learned 
we  learned  thoroughly,  and  there  were  les- 
sons not  to  be  found  in  books  to  be  gained 
from  the  daily  example  of  the  two  fine 
old  gentlewomen,  with  their  rigid  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong  and  the  quaintly  elegant 
manners  of  an  age  gone  by. 

Many  are  the  children,  now  grown  and 
scattered,  who  have  sat  under  their  gentle 
sway,  and  surely  not  one  of  them  can  think 
to-day  without  a  thrill  of  kindly  affection 
of  the  little  dame-school  in  the  gray  old 
house  on  Essex  Street 


TWO   SALEM   INSTITUTIONS. 


history  of  the  charming  and  ven- 
erable town  of  Salem  would  be 
complete  which  omitted  the  men- 
tion of  those  two  purely  Salem  institutions, 
Black-jacks  and  Gibraltars.  They  possess 
all  the  prestige  and  dignity  of  respectable 
age.  They  are  no  modern  and  frivolous 
confection,  such  as  cream  caramels  or 
chocolates  duchesse.  Our  fathers  knew 
Black-jack.  Gibraltars  met  with  the  se- 
date approval  of  our  grandmothers.  Black- 
jacks and  Gibraltars  are  prehistoric. 

Since  there  may  chance  to  be  alive  some 
free-born  American  who  does  not  know 
these  highly  proper  confections,  it  is,  per- 
haps, as  well  to  state  that  a  Black-jack  is 
a  generous  stick  of  a  dark  and  saccharine 
compound  which  combines  a  variety  of 
flavors.  In  tasting  Black-jack  you  imagine 


64  Two  Salem  Institutions. 

that  you  detect  a  hint  of  maple  syrup,  a 
trace  of  butter,  a  trifle  of  brown  sugar  and 
molasses,  and  a  tiny  fancy  of  the  whole 
mixture's  having  been  burnt  on  to  the 
kettle.  Make  no  mistake,  however.  This 
burnt  flavor  is  not  accidental,  but  inten- 
tional. It  is  one  of  the  mysteries,  not  par- 
ticularly pleasant  perhaps,  but  it  is  the  cor- 
rect Black-jack  flavor,  and  no  Black-jack 
worthy  of  the  name  would  consent  to  be 
without  it.  To  the  youthful  palate  Black- 
jack possesses  a  taste  at  once  sweet  and 
bitter,  rich  and  slightly  medicinal,  but  alto- 
gether joyous  and  delightsome. 

The  Gibraltar,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a 
white  and  delicate  candy,  flavored  with 
lemon  or  peppermint,  soft  as  cream  at  one 
stage  of  its  existence,  but  capable  of  hard- 
ening into  a  consistency  so  stony  and  so 
unutterably  flinty-hearted  that  it  is  almost 
a  libel  upon  the  rock  whose  name  it  bears. 
The  Gibraltar  is  the  aristocrat  of  Salem 
confectionery.  It  gazes  upon  chocolate 
and  sherbet  and  says  :  — 


Two  Salem  Institutions.  65 

"  Before  you  were,  I  was.  After  you  are 
not,  I  shall  be." 

Black  jack  decidedly  has  not  that  air  of 
exclusiveness  which  marks  the  Gibraltar. 
Black-jack  has  about  it  a  reckless  and  some- 
what riotous  devil-may-carishness.  It  is 
preeminently  the  joy  of  the  youthful  It 
satisfies  young  ambition.  It  fills  all  one's 
desires  as  to  stickiness  and  sweetness.  It 
is  of  convenient  size  if  one  be  generously 
disposed  to  offer  bites.  It  is  a  consoler  of 
grief,  and  a  sympathizer  in  time  of  joy. 

The  Gibraltar  is  the  daintier  sweet- 
meat. One  may  eat  a  dozen  —  could  one 
be  so  ill-bred  —  without  soiling  one's  finger 
tips.  The  Gibraltar,  although  well  loved 
in  childhood,  grows  with  our  growth,  ever 
increasing  in  value  through  the  years,  to 
become  in  time  the  cherished  companion 
of  our  age.  The  taste  in  flavors  is  apt  to 
change,  lemon  being  preferred  by  youth. 
Indeed,  I  remember  the  pathetic  saying  of 
a  charming  old  Salem  dame  :  — 

<CI  know  I  must  be  growing  old,  because 
S 


66  Two  Salem  Institutions. 

a  peppermint  Gibraltar  is  so  comforting  to 
me!" 

It  is  related  of  a  Salem  lady  who  went 
abroad  for  an  extended  tour  that  she  car- 
ried with  her  a  plenteous  supply  of  Gibral- 
tars,  and  that  whenever  she  found  herself 
feeling  lonely,  or  ill  with  home-longing, 
she  ate  a  Gibraltar,  and  was  straightway 
consoled. 

The  Gibraltar  is  the  confection  of  age, 
to  the  exclusion  of  Black-jack.  One  could 
not  imagine  my  dear  old  friend,  Miss  Mary- 
Ellen,  rioting  in  the  sticky  delight  of  Black- 
jack, but  I  think  she  was  never  without  a 
neatly  wrapped  Gibraltar  in  her  work, 
basket,  which  from  time  to  time  she  nibbled 
with  much  dignity  and  serious  enjoyment. 

In  spite  of  their  differences  of  constitu- 
tion, however,  Black-jack  and  Gibraltar  are 
firm  friends,  united  by  the  bonds  of  age 
and  long  companionship.  Together  they 
have  lived.  Together  they  have  rejoiced 
the  souls  of  generations.  Witch  Hill  may 
blow  away  ;  the  East  India  Museum  may 


Two  Salem  Institutions.  67 

be  swallowed  up  in  earth  ;  Charter  Street 
Burying  Ground  may  go  out  to  sea ;  but  as 
long  as  a  single  house  remains  standing  in 
Salem  Village,  so  long  will  Black-jack  and 
Gibraltar  wisely  reign,  and  retain  their 
honorable  place  in  the  inmost  hearts  of  the 
Salem  people. 


SALEM   CUPBOARDS. 

HERE  were  cupboards  in  Salem. 
Whether  they  are  there  still,  or 
have  been  built  up,  or  pulled  down, 
or  swept  away,  in  the  march  of  modern  im- 
provement, I  know  not,  but  in  my  child- 
hood there  were  cupboards  in  Salem. 

They  were,  moreover,  real  cupboards  ; 
no  after-thoughts,  built  across  the  end  of 
an  entry  here  or  the  corner  of  a  room 
there,  —  places  into  which  to  huddle  um- 
brellas and  overcoats,  or  to  hustle  mend- 
ing and  children's  litter  out  of  the  sight  of 
visitors.  Salem  cupboards  were  always  in- 
tentional. The  builder  understood  his  re- 
sponsibility, and  acted  accordingly.  The 
housewife  regarded  her  cupboards  as  the 
inner  and  most  sacred  portion  of  her  trust. 
It  was  no  light  task  even  to  keep  the  keys 
always  counted  and  polished.  As  for  los- 


Salem  Cupboards.  6$ 

ing  one,  or  forgetting  which  was  which, 
that  would  indicate  a  mind  so  utterly  friv- 
olous that  one  could  hardly  conceive  of  it. 

The  genuine,  old-time  Salem  housekeeper 
realized  that  there  was  a  conscience  in  her 
work.  She  took  her  cupboards  seriously. 
To  her  there  was  nothing  trivial  about 
them.  To  do  her  duty  by  her  cupboards 
was  one  of  the  most  inviolable  principles 
of  her  sober  and  decorous  life. 

It  took  no  ordinary  brain  to  keep  watch 
and  ward  over  these  cupboards.  They 
were  many  in  number.  They  were  con- 
fusing as  to  size  and  shape.  They  pos- 
sessed the  charm  of  the  unexpected.  One 
never  knew  quite  when  or  where  one 
should  chance  upon  them.  They  were  tall 
and  narrow  beside  the  fireplace,  or  low  and 
chubby  above  it ;  they  lurked  behind  the 
wainscoting,  like  Polonius  back  of  the  arras. 
One  of  them  was  to  be  reached  only  by  a 
step-ladder;  another  jolly  pair  occupied 
crannies  under  two  deep  window-seats.  In 
one  "house  was  a  cupboard  which  pretended 


70  Salem  Cupboards. 

to  be  solid  wall,  but  was  really  a  deep  re- 
cess for  the  concealment  of  firearms ;  and 
in  yet  another  was  a  narrow  closet  about 
which  hung  the  horror  of  an  old  Ginevra- 
like  legend  of  smothering  to  death. 

There  was  literally  no  end  to  the  num- 
ber and  variety  of  Salem  cupboards.  They 
possessed  a  charm  quite  their  own,  and 
this  charm  was  felt  to  the  utmost  by  the 
children,  who  were  only  occasionally  al- 
lowed to  view  the  treasures  kept  under 
strict  lock  and  key  by  the  high  priestesses 
of  these  sacred  nooks  and  shrines. 

Foremost  in  the  memory  of  delightful 
Salem  cupboards  stands  the  dining-room 
closet  of  a  second-cousin  of  ours,  whom  we 
called  Cousin  Susan.  She  was  a  widow  of 
some  fifty  odd  years,  and  kept  house  for  a 
bachelor  brother,  who  was  a  retired  sea- 
captain.  She  was  a  round,  trim,  black- 
eyed  woman,  greatly  afflicted  with  rheu- 
matism, for  which  reason  she  always 
walked  with  a  cane.  The  cane  was  of 
some  dark,  foreign  wood,  highly  polished, 


Salem  Cupboards.  ji 

and  the  top  was  carved  to  resemble  a  fal- 
con's head,  with  shining  eyes  of  yellow 
glass. 

Cousin  Susan  was  a  kindly  soul,  who 
would,  I  think,  have  even  been  merry,  had 
not  the  austerity  of  her  youthful  training 
warped  her  natural  instincts  and  given  her 
a  certain  rigidly  virtuous  air.  She  be- 
lieved very  sincerely  in  the  old-time  maxim 
that  "children  should  be  seen,  and  not 
heard,"  and  she  had  rather  an  alarming 
way  at  times  of  saying  "Tut,  tut!"  But 
she  was  really  fond  of  young  people,  and 
whenever  we  went  to  see  her  she  would 
say  seductively,  — 

"  I  wonder,  now,  if  we  could  find  any- 
thing nice  in  Cousin  Susan's  dining-room 
cupboard." 

And  truly  that  person  who  failed  to  do 
so  must  have  been  hard  to  please  ;  for,  in 
our  eyes  at  least,  that  cupboard  held  a  lit- 
tle of  everything  that  was  rare  and  de- 
lightful. 

A  most  delicious  odor  came  forth  when 


J2  Salem  Cupboards. 

the  door  was  opened :  a  hint  of  the  spici- 
ness  of  rich  cake,  a  tingling  sense  of  pre- 
served ginger,  and  a  certain  ineffable 
sweetness  which  no  other  closet  ever  pos- 
sessed, and  which  I  know  not  how  to  de- 
scribe. It  might  well  have  proceeded  from 
the  walls  and  shelves  of  the  cupboard  it- 
self, for  they  were  indeed  emblems  of  pur- 
ity. The  paint  was  varnished  to  a  high 
degree  of  glossiness,  and  was  so  exqui- 
sitely kept  as  to  look  like  white  porcelain. 
The  china  here,  as  in  all  genuine  Salem 
cupboards,  was  chiefly  of  the  honest  old 
blue  Canton  ware.  There  were  shining 
piles  of  those  plates  which,  while  they  are 
rather  heavy  to  handle,  always  surprise 
one  by  being  so  thin  at  the  edges.  There 
were  generous  teacups  like  small  bowls, 
squat  pitchers  with  big  noses,  and  a  tureen 
whose  cover  had  the  head  of  a  boar  for  a 
handle.  And  in  all  this  the  blue  was  dull 
and  deep  in  tint,  with  a  certain  ill-defined, 
vaporous  quality  at  the  edges  of  the  lines, 
and  the  white  of  the  cool  greenish  tinge  of 


Salem  Cupboards.  73 

a  duck's  egg.  You  can  buy  blue  Canton 
to-day,  but  it  is  not  old  blue  Canton.  Such 
china  is  matchless  now,  but  in  this  cup- 
board there  were  shelves  of  it. 

Cousin  Susan  possessed  also  another  set 
of  china,  which  she  valued  far  above  her 
blue.  It  was  always  singularly  attractive 
to  us  as  children,  though  I  have  come  to 
believe  that  it  is  far  less  beautiful  than  the 
Canton.  It  was  a  pure,  thin  white  ware, 
delicately  fluted  at  the  edges  and  deco- 
rated with  little  raised  lilac  sprigs.  It  was 
used  only  upon  occasions  of  solemn  com- 
pany tea-drinkings,  and  Cousin  Susan  al- 
ways washed  it  herself  in  her  little  cedar 
dish  -  tub.  We  children  considered  this 
china  so  choice  and  desirable  that  a  bit 
of  a  broken  saucer,  which  included  one  of 
the  pale,  tiny  sprays,  was  cherished  far 
above  our  real  doll's  dishes.  We  lent  it 
from  one  to  another,  each  of  us  keeping 
it  for  one  day  ;  but  it  was  always  one  of 
those  unsatisfactory  treasures  of  childhood 
for  which  we  could  never  find  any  adequate 


74  Salem  Cupboards. 

use.  We  could  think  of  nothing  to  do 
with  this  bit  of  china  which  seemed  at  all 
worthy  of  so  lovely  an  object. 

At  the  left  hand  of  Cousin  Susan's 
shelves  of  china  was  a  little  cupboard  with 
a  diamond-paned  glass  door.  This  was  the 
sanctum  sanctorum,  —  a  cupboard  within  a 
cupboard  ;  and  here,  as  one  might  have  ex- 
pected, were  stored  the  choicest  treasures 
of  all.  It  was  not  the  domestic  preserve 
closet.  Cousin  Susan  was  thrifty,  and 
had  good  store  of  home-made  dainties,  but 
they  were  kept  in  the  cool  seclusion  of  a 
dark  cellar  store-room.  This  little  glass 
cupboard  held  the  stock  of  foreign  sweet- 
meats :  the  round-shouldered  blue  jars,  in- 
closed in  a  network  of  split  bamboo,  which 
contained  the  fiery,  amber  ginger  ;  the  flat 
boxes  of  guava  jelly,  hot  curry  powders, 
chilli  sauce,  and  choleric  Bengal  chutney. 
Here  were  two  miniature  casks  of  tam- 
arinds, jolly  and  black,  Cousin  Susan's 
favorites.  She  had  a  certain  air  of  dis< 
approval  toward  most  of  these  strange 


Salem  Cupboards.  75 

conserves.  "  They  are  not  good  for  little 
people,"  she  averred  ;  and  indeed  she  al- 
ways maintained  that  these  ardent  sweet- 
meats were  fitter  for  the  delectation  of 
rude  men  than  for  the  delicate  palates  of 
gentlewomen.  Of  tamarinds,  however, 
Cousin  Susan  did  approve.  Properly  di- 
luted with  cool  water,  they  made  what  she 
called  a  "  very  pretty  drink."  She  was 
fond  of  sending  a  glass  to  any  neighbor 
who  was  ill  and  feverish,  and  she  was  al- 
ways following  our  cousin  the  sea-captain 
about  with  a  blue  china  bowl  of  the  mix- 
ture, begging  him  to  partake  of  it. 

"  Susan,  I  hate  tamarind- water,"  our 
cousin  would  protest. 

"  It  will  cool  your  blood,  William,"  his 
sister  would  urge. 

"  But  I  don't  want  my  blood  cool.  I 
want  it  warm,"  the  captain  would  reply. 

As  a  general  thing,  however,  Cousin  Su- 
san came  off  triumphant.  The  captain 
grumblingly  partook  of  his  dose,  and  was 
always  most  generous  in  sharing  it  with 


76  Salem  Cupboards. 

us  children.  The  beautiful  little  brown 
stones  also  fell  to  our  lot,  and  we  hoarded 
the  useless  things  with  great  care,  although 
it  always  seemed  to  us  a  great  oversight 
on  the  part  of  nature  that  tamarind  seeds 
did  not  have  holes  through  them,  that  one 
might  string  them  as  beads. 

Cousin  Susan's  cupboard  also  contained 
stronger  waters  than  tamarind,  for  side  by 
side  sat  two  corpulent  cut-glass  decanters, 
of  which  one  was  half  filled  with  madeira 
wine,  and  the  other  with  honest  rum.  A 
variety  of  sweet  cakes  was  near  by,  to  be 
served  with  the  wine  to  any  chance  visitor. 
There  were  black  fruit  cake  in  a  japanned 
box  ;  "  hearts  and  rounds  "  of  rich  yellow 
pound  cake ;  and  certain  delicate  but  inane 
little  sponge  biscuit,  of  which  our  cousin 
spoke  by  the  older-fashioned  name  of  diet 

—  or,  as  she  chose  to  pronounce  it,  "dier" 

—  bread.     She  always  called  the  sponge 
cakes  "  little  dier  breads."    Pound  and  fruit 
cakes  were  forbidden  to  our  youth,  but  we 
might  have  our  ladylike  fill  of  "  dier  breads," 


Salem  Cupboards.  77 

and  also  of  delightful  seed-cakes,  which 
were  cut  in  the  shape  of  an  oak-leaf,  and 
were  marvels  of  sugary  thinness. 

These  seed-cakes,  by  the  bye,  were  kept 
in  a  jar  which  deserves  at  least  a  passing 
mention.  It  was,  I  suppose,  some  two  or 
three  feet  high,  though  it  looked  to  me 
then  much  higher.  It  was  of  blue-and- 
white  china,  and  was  fitted  with  a  cover  of 
dull  silver.  Tradition  stated  that  some  sea- 
faring ancestor  had  brought  it  home  from 
Calcutta,  filled  with  rock-candy.  What 
was  done  with  so  large  a  supply  of  this 
confection  I  never  knew.  In  those  days 
choice  sugar-plums  were  not  as  plenty  as 
they  have  since  become;  possibly  at  the 
time  "Black-jacks"  and  "Gibraltars"  were 
unknown,  and  this  was  Salem's  only  candy. 
At  all  events,  it  is  somewhere  recorded 
that  the  ship  Belisarius  brought  from  Cal- 
cutta " ten  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  pounds"  of  this  same  rocky 
and  crystalline  dainty.  The  fact  of  such  a 
quantity  of  candy  had  for  us  children  a 


78  Salem  Cupboards. 

superb  and  opulent  significance.  What  an 
idea,  to  have  a  choice  confection,  not  by 
the  stick  or  beggarly  ounce,  but  by  the  jar- 
ful !  To  think  of  going  and  casually  help- 
ing one's  self  at  will !  To  imagine  lifting 
that  silver  lid,  and  gazing  unreproved  into 
the  sugary  depths !  Perhaps  nice,  white- 
haired  spinsters  used  it  in  glittering  lumps 
to  sweeten  their  tea,  or  even  served  it  at 
table  by  the  plateful,  as  one  might  serve 
cake.  Fancy  exhausted  itself  in  all  sorts 
of  delightful  speculations.  The  whole  le- 
gend had  a  profuse  and  mythical  sound. 
It  was  like  a  fairy  tale,  a  scene  from  Ara- 
bian Nights.  It  threw  about  the  jar  and 
the  cupboard  a  mystic  charm  which  time 
fails  to  efface.  Even  now  a  stick  of  spar- 
kling rock-candy  has  power  to  call  up 
Cousin  Susan's  dining-room  cupboard,  its 
sweet,  curious  perfume,  the  quaint  old  sil- 
ver and  blue  china,  and  the  huge  turkey- 
feather  fan,  with  its  carved  ivory  handle 
and  wreath  of  brilliant  painted  flowers, 
which  hung  on  the  inside  of  the  door. 


Salem  Cupboards.  jg 

Out  of  the  shadows  of  the  past  comes 
another  memory,  the  picture  of  that  strange 
old  Salem  homestead  which  has  been  made 
known  to  fame  as  the  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables.  Some  alterations  have  done  away 
with  two  of  the  gables,  but  the  old  house 
is  otherwise  unchanged.  In  the  days  of 
my  childhood  its  mistress  was  a  lonely  wo- 
man, about  whom  hung  the  mystery  of  one 
whose  solitude  is  peopled  by  the  weird 
visions  that  opium  brings.  We  regarded 
her  with  something  of  awe,  and  I  have 
wondered,  in  later  days,  what  strange  and 
eldritch  beings  walked  with  her  about  those 
shadowy  rooms,  or  flitted  noiselessly  up 
and  down  the  fine  old  staircase. 

The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  was  no 
open  and  joyous  dwelling,  where  children 
loved  to  flock  and  run  about  at  will.  There 
was  always  an  air  of  ceremony  and  dignity 
here,  and  a  certain  oppressive  chill  haunted 
the  great  low  parlor,  where  the  beams  di- 
vided the  ceiling  into  squares.  We  never 
paid  a  visit  there  except  with  some  grown 


8o  Salem  Cupboards. 

person,  and  then  sat  throughout  our  stay, 
dangling  our  legs  from  our  high  chairs, 
and  studying  the  quaintly  stiff  array  of  or- 
naments upon  the  lofty  mantel.  There 
were  three  covered  Delft  jars,  two  vases  of 
flowers,  and  at  either  end  a  flask-shaped 
china  vase.  Between  these  taller  articles 
were  set  shallow  cups  of  painted  china. 
Except  in  the  flowers  which  filled  the  two 
middle  vases,  I  never  knew  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  mantel  to  differ. 

A  large  jar  stood  on  the  floor  directly 
beneath  the  mantel,  and  ranged  firmly 
about  the  room  were  several  Dutch  apple- 
tree  chairs,  with  others  of  old-fashioned 
severity.  On  the  right  of  the  mantel  was 
a  delightful  cupboard,  whose  tall,  arched 
door  often  stood  open,  displaying  a  beauti- 
ful collection  of  old  cut  glass.  We  chil- 
dren used  to  describe  this  cupboard  as 
"  hollow,"  it  being,  in  fact,  shaped  like  an 
apse.  It  had  six  semi-circular  shelves,  all 
of  rich  dark  wood,  against  which  the  rows 
of  splendid  old  glass  glittered  most  bravely 


Salem  Cupboards.  81 

There  were  graceful  pitchers,  shallow 
dishes,  odd  bowls,  and  flagons  almost  with- 
out number.  On  the  floor  of  the  cupboard 
a  vast  china  punch-bowl  was  flanked  by 
jars  and  vases  each  more  enchanting  than 
the  other.  I  believe  there  was  no  truly 
housewifely  dame  in  Salem  who  did  not 
adore  and  envy  this  wealth  of  crystal,  but 
although  we  children  admired  it,  it  did  not 
inspire  us  with  any  deeper  feelings.  It 
did  not  appeal  to  the  youthful  imagination. 
It  was  an  array  of  frail  and  icy  splendor, 
toward  which  our  hearts  could  not  warm ; 
not  even  the  subtle  suggestions  of  good 
cheer  conveyed  by  delicate  wine-glasses 
and  portly  old  decanters  could  charm 
minds  so  unformed  and  simple  as  ours. 

Equally  far  removed  from  childish  emo- 
tions, and  even  more  splendid,  was  the 
chest  of  family  silver,  which  we  were  some- 
times allowed  to  behold.  How  little  did 
we  think,  as  we  viewed  in  admiring  silence 
the  fine  heavy  tankards,  candlesticks,  old 
two-tined  silver  forks,  and  antique  porrin- 


82  Salem  Cupboards. 

gers,  that  the  fate  of  this  haughty  collec- 
tion was  to  be  sold  for  mere  old  silver,  and 
hustled  without  respect  or  reverence  to  a 
fiery  death  in  the  silversmith's  crucible  ! 
Sadly  changed  since  that  day  is  the  House 
of  the  Seven  Gables.  The  family  silver  is 
melted  ;  the  antique-furnishings  are  scat- 
tered ;  and  gone,  one  knows  not  whither, 
the  beautiful  old  glass,  the  glory  of  that 
tall,  dark,  "  hollow  "  cupboard,  and  the  pride 
of  that  strange  mistress,  who  dreamed  such 
dreams  and  saw  such  eerie  visions  in  her 
great  lonely  chamber  above-stairs. 

Another  Salem  cupboard,  which  is  al- 
ways of  pleasant  memory,  was  in  the  house 
of  one  of  my  schoolmates,  with  whom  I  was 
spasmodically  intimate.  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  our  visits  to  this  closet  were  attended 
by  a  certain  awful  joy,  from  the  fact  that 
they  always  partook  of  a  character  surrep- 
titious, not  to  say  sneaking.  I  was  assured 
by  my  companion  that  her  mother  ap- 
proved of  her  investigations,  but,  at  the 
same  time,  she  casually  mentioned  that  it 


Salem  Cupboards.  83 

was  as  well  not  to  speak  in  the  front  entry, 
and  that  the  fourth  stair  from  the  top 
creaked  "  so  awful  "  that  she  usually  made 
a  point  of  stepping  over  it. 

The  chamber  containing  the  closet  was 
a  back  room,  seldom  visited,  and  used  only 
for  the  storage  of  trunks  and  boxes.  The 
windows  were  fitted  with  shutters,  in  one 
of  which  a  heart-shaped  hole  had  been  cut 
to  admit  a  little  light  At  the  chimney 
end  the  room  was  wainscoted  to  the  ceil- 
ing with  wood  which  had  never  been 
painted,  but  which  had  taken  a  fine  brown 
color  from  age  and  the  fires  which  had 
once  roared  on  the  red-tiled  hearth.  The 
closet  in  this  brown  paneling  was  one  of 
the  tall  and  narrow  sort,  and  the  shelves 
ran  back  very  deep.  It  was  of  the  same 
age-darkened  wood  within  as  without,  and 
the  door  sagged  on  its  hinges,  so  that  we 
had.  to  lift  it  together  when  we  opened  it ; 
otherwise  we  might  have  disturbed  some 
of  those  people  below  who  were  so  very 
willing  we  should  be  there.  In  this  cup- 


84  Salem  Cupboards. 

board  were  stored  the  possessions  of  a 
great-aunt  of  my  friend.  We  had  seen  an 
ivory  picture  of  her  in  the  parlor  many 
times,  and  we  thought  of  her  always  as  a 
thin  young  creature,  with  unnaturally  large 
gray  eyes,  and  a  neck  that  looked  too 
slender  to  bear  the  weight  of  the  small 
Head  with  its  wealth  of  piled-up  auburn 
hair.  Her  name  was  Isabel,  and  she  had 
died  in  her  early  girlhood.  Nobody  seemed 
to  remember  much  about  her.  Perhaps 
there  was  nothing  to  remember.  Her 
miniature  and  her  framed  sampler  were 
preserved  with  honor,  but  I  think  my 
friend  and  myself  were  the  only  ones  who 
cared  for  the  relics  which  were  put  away 
in  this  upper  cupboard. 

There  were  a  number  of  books  of  the 
floral-token  order,  containing  sentimental 
verses  and  bits  of  elegant  prose  in  praise 
of  the  Rose,  the  Lily,  the  Rainbow,  and 
kindred  subjects.  They  were  embellished 
with  the  portraits  of  large-eyed  and  small- 
mouthed  beauties  with  wonderful  ringlets, 


Salem  Cupboards.  85 

and  the  covers,  though  now  faded,  had 
once  been  gorgeous  with  gilding  and  floral 
designs.  An  unpleasant  feature  of  these 
books  was  the  fact  that  when  one  opened 
them  tiny  brown  spiders  went  "  tacking  " 
crookedly  across  the  pages.  They  were  a 
highly  objectionable  sort  of  spiders,  that 
did  not  at  all  mind  being  suddenly  jammed 
between  the  pages,  —  for  they  were  already 
too  flat  to  be  any  flatter,  —  and  that  would 
just  as  lief  run  backward  as  forward  with 
their  ugly  crab-like  legs. 

On  the  same  shelf  with  the  books  was 
the  mahogany  box  of  water-colors  with 
which  poor  Isabel,  who  had  accomplish- 
ments, forsooth,  had  made  the  prim  little 
sketches  which  filled  a  portfolio.  They 
were  chiefly  of  the  stencil-plate  variety, 
done  from  boarding-school  "patterns,"  in 
clear  colors,  upon  white,  gilt-edged  draw- 
ing-paper. There  was  one  full-blown  white 
rose,  painted  with  exquisite  neatness  and 
delicacy,  which  was  an  especial  favorite  of 
ours  ;  but  most  of  the  designs  were  wreaths 


86  Salem  Cupboards. 

and  garlands  of  flowers  surrounding  verses 
of  poetry  copied  in  a  fine  hand.  There 
was  also  on  this  shelf  an  album,  wherein 
friends  had  written  verses  from  the  poets, 
and  admirers  had  even  ventured  upon 
original  tributes  "  To  Isabel." 

In  a  bag  of  faded  brocade  was  a  tangle 
of  pale  sampler  silks  and  crewels,  not  in 
that  deliciously  prim  state  of  order  which 
one  would  have  expected  of  Isabel.  Per- 
haps before  our  day  some  other  child  had 
tossed  them  over,  even  as  we  did,  longing 
but  not  daring  to  appropriate  them.  Some- 
how, these  silks  and  wools  seemed  so  much 
prettier  than  those  of  any  ordinary,  down- 
stairs work-bag ;  and  certainly  nothing 
could  in  any  way  compare  with  the  basket 
of  pieces  of  French  prints  with  which  Isa- 
bel had  been  "  setting  a  Job's  Patience." 
No  modern  cottons  possess  the  faint  deli- 
cacy of  color  and  fabric  of  these  old-time 
French  calicoes.  We  used  to  delight  in 
spreading  the  pieces  out  upon  the  floor, 
and  choosing,  in  discreet  whispers,  what 
patterns  we  would  like  for  gowns. 


Salem  Cupboards.  87 

Piles  of  yellow  old  newspapers  filled  the 
closet's  upper  shelves,  and  a  box  of  thin 
gauze  ribbons  and  a  few  pairs  of  silk 
gloves,  long  and  limp,  completed  the  list  of 
Isabel's  relics.  It  would  be  hard  to  de- 
scribe the  singular  charm  which  clung 
about  these  simple  keepsakes,  though 
probably,  in  great  part,  it  was  that  the  joy 
was  a  forbidden  one.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
there  was  a  remarkable  attraction  exer- 
cised upon  us  by  the  silent  chamber,  the 
ray  of  sunlight  which  fell  through  the 
heart-shaped  hole  in  the  shutter,  the  nar- 
row brown  cupboard,  and  the  precious  pos- 
sessions of  poor  gray-eyed  Isabel,  who  to 
us  could  never  be  old. 

When,  as  children,  we  had  been  espe- 
cially good,  we  were  sometimes  rewarded 
by  being  sent  upon  a  visit  to  a  certain  de- 
lightful maiden  lady  whom  we  called  "  Miss 
Mary-Ellen."  It  was  really  Miss  Mary- 
EJlen  whom  we  went  to  see,  but  we  always 
hoped  that  her  sister,  Miss  Eliza-Ann, 
would  be  at  home,  for  Miss  Eliza-Ann  was 


88  Salem  Cupboards. 

very  strange  and  did  surprising  things. 
She  was  the  elder  of  the  two  sisters,  and 
might  in  these  days  have  been  called 
strong-minded,  though  the  word  then  was 
"eccentric."  She  was  a  tall,  long-armed 
woman,  with  a  Roman  nose,  piercing  black 
•  eyes,  and  a  wild-looking  brown  wig  which 
was  always  awry.  This  wig,  by  the  way, 
possessed  an  awful  fascination  for  us  chil- 
dren, partly  because  it  was  a  wig,  and 
partly  because  Miss  Eliza-Ann  had  a  star- 
tling habit  of  suddenly  plucking  it  from  her 
head  with  a  vindictive  clutch,  and  casting 
it  upon  the  floor,  when  she  was  absorbed 
in  study,  annoyed  by  the  heat,  or  excited 
by  discussion.  One  never  knew  at  what 
moment  she  might  do  this,  and  therefore 
we  always  watched  her  with  hopeful  inter- 
est. She  held  great  possibilities  of  amuse- 
ment. She  became  in  time,  for  us,  a  sort 
of  majestic  Punch  and  Judy.  Her  head 
was  as  smooth  and  ivory-tinted  as  the  os- 
trich egg  which  adorned  the  mantel,  and 
when  she  doffed  her  wig  her  whole  ap- 


Salem  Cupboards.  89 

pearance  underwent  the  most  extraordi- 
nary change.  This  habit  was  terribly  an- 
noying to  Miss  Mary-Ellen,  herself  the 
most  dainty  and  decorous  of  maiden  la- 
dies. I  can  see  yet  the  horrified  way  in 
which  she  would  lift  her  hands,  crying,  — 

"  Oh,  Eliza-Ann,  Eliza-Ann,  how  can 
you  do  so  ?  " 

"  Because,  Mary-Ellen,"  Miss  Eliza-Ann 
would  respond,  in  her  slightly  bass  voice, 
"  I  am  uncomfortable.  My  brain  is  too 
warm  to  think." 

"  Then  at  least  put  on  a  handkerchief," 
her  sister  would  plead.  "It  really  doesn't 
seem  decent ;  before  the  children,  too !  " 

To  which  Miss  Eliza-Ann  was  apt  to 
reply  by  her  favorite  exclamation,  "  Fid- 
dlesticks ! " 

However,  she  would  eventually  hang 
loosely  over  her  head  a  red  bandanna 
handkerchief,  which  certainly  gave  her  a 
very  witch-like  and  unpleasant  look.  She 
was  a  woman  of  superior  and,  for  those 
days,  unusual  scholarly  attainments.  Her 


go  Salem  Cupboards. 

friends  sighed  and  shook  their  heads  a 
little  over  "  poor  Eliza-Ann."  It  would 
have  been  more  truly  feminine,  they  felt, 
had  she  not  been  quite  so  fine  a  linguist 
and  mathematician.  They  could  not  thor- 
oughly approve  of  her  being  able  to  fit 
youths  for  Harvard.  Her  masculine  fail- 
ings were,  however,  rather  softened  by  the 
fact  that  Miss  Eliza-Ann  was  a  model  of 
feminine  modesty.  In  spite  of  the  episodes 
of  the  wig,  she  was  severely  proper  in  her 
way,  and  a  highly  irreverent  nephew  has 
even  been  known  to  declare  that  his  aunt 
always  drew  circles  by  a  saucer,  consider- 
ing dividers  indelicate  on  account  of  their 
limbs.  She  had  what  was,  in  our  eyes,  a 
highly  objectionable  habit  of  unexpectedly 
pouncing  upon  us  with  mathematical  co- 
nundrums. She  delighted  to  spring  upon 
us  at  unguarded  moments,  and  ask  trium- 
phantly, — 

"  How  much  are  twelve  and  nine  ?  and 
thirteen  ?  and  twenty-one  ?  and  seven  ?  " 

And  this  abominable  practice  she  would 


Salem  Cupboards.  91 

sometimes  pursue  for  an  entire  afternoon, 
waiting  until  we  were  happily  forgetful  and 
absorbed,  and  then  suddenly  attacking  us 
once  more  with  an  explosive  "And  fifteen  ? 
and  nine  ? "  She  called  this  pastime  the 
"  game  of  mental  addition,"  but  it  was  a 
sorry  game  for  us.  We  used  to  dodge 
around  corners  to  avoid  meeting  her  on 
the  street,  for  fear  of  being  confronted 
with  one  of  these  baleful  questions ;  and  I 
recollect  encountering  Miss  Eliza-Ann  at  a 
party,  when  I  was  quite  a  grown  girl,  and 
having  to  struggle  to  persuade  myself  that 
she  would  no  longer  raise  her  thin  fore- 
finger and  say,  "And  seven?  and  eight- 
een ?  " 

As  for  Miss  Mary-Ellen,  she  was  in 
every  way  a  contrast  to  her  more  brilliant 
sister.  She  was  tall,  but,  being  in  delicate 
health,  she  was  of  fragile  figure,  and  was 
never  seen  without  a  demure  little  shawl 
about  her  shoulders.  She  usually  wore  a 
a  gown  of  very  dark  satin  changing  from 
green  to  black,  and  a  long  black  silk  apron. 


92  Salem  Cupboards. 

Her  ordinary  shawl  was  of  fine  white  cash- 
mere, with  a  border  in  black  and  slaty-blue, 
and  a  single  large  palm-leaf  ornamented 
the  corner  which  hung  exactly  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  back.  She  had  other  shawls  of 
much  gorgeousness,  which  appeared  only 
upon  festive  occasions.  Miss  Mary-Ellen's 
face  was  almost  as  pale  as  her  lovely  silver 
hair,  which  she  wore  in  little  curls  each 
side  of  her  temples.  Her  cap  was  white, 
with  tiny  bows  of  lavender  ribbon,  and  her 
wide  worked  collar  was  fastened  by  a  pin 
containing  hair  from  the  heads  of  her 
father  and  mother.  I  think  that  she  had 
the  very  sweetest  and  most  lovable  with- 
ered old  face  in  the  world.  I  dare  say  she 
was  no  beauty,  but  we  firmly  believed  her 
one.  She  was  so  delicately  and  exqui- 
sitely fragrant  and  immaculate  that  it  was 
like  caressing  a  bunch  of  garden  pinks  to 
put  your  cheek  against  hers.  Above  all, 
her  countenance  so  beamed  with  a  gentle 
and  innocent  kindliness,  a  sort  of  beneficent 
love  and  charity  for  all  mankind,  that  we 


Salem  Clipboards.  9} 

children  could  not  choose  but  adore  her. 
She  was  not  a  scholar,  like  her  sister,  but 
she  possessed  various  pretty  accomplish- 
ments. She  directed  the  house,  and,  when 
her  health  permitted,  she  always  made  the 
"diet  bread."  It  used  to  be  a  belief  in 
Salem  that  it  took  a  lady's  hand  to  make 
really  elegant  sponge-cake.  Heavier  sorts 
of  dainties  might  be  trusted  to  servants, 
but  only  a  gentlewoman  could  fitly  be  ex- 
pected to  take  the  responsibility  of  this 
most  delicate  of  sweets.  So  true  was  this 
that  if  a  once  famous  school  in  Salem  did 
not  actually  include  sponge-cake  in  its  cur- 
riculum, at  least  it  is  true  that  no  young 
lady's  education  was  considered  finished 
until  she  had  made  a  loaf  of  irreproachable 
"diet  bread."  Miss  Mary-Ellen's  was  fa- 
mous even  in  Salem.  She  could  also  fash- 
ion very  pretty  needle-books,  and  could 
paint  bright- colored  butterflies  on  Chinese 
rice-paper.  Her  delicate  health  confined 
her  much  to  the  house,  and  she  dearly 
loved  to  have  children  visit  her,  if  they 


94  Salem  Cupboards. 

were  good.  She  could  not  bear  bolster* 
ous  conduct,  and  quarrels  and  bickerings 
caused  her  deep  distress.  It  should  be 
said,  however,  that  we  seldom  displayed 
any  but  our  best  behavior  to  gentle  Miss 
Mary-Ellen,  and  she,  on  her  part,  used  to 
exert  herself  for  our  enjoyment.  We  were 
allowed  to  play  with  the  curious  ivory 
chessmen  which  her  great-uncle  Joseph 
had  brought  from  Calcutta  ;  she  let  us  look 
over  her  piece-bags,  and  choose  one  bit  of 
silk  or  satin  for  ourselves  ;  and  last,  and 
best  of  all,  she  showed  us  her  sitting-room 
cupboard. 

The  sitting-room  was  above-stairs,  as 
Miss  Mary-Ellen  was  often  too  feeble  to 
go  down  for  many  weeks  together.  Here 
was  Miss  Eliza-Ann's  severe  study-table, 
with  its  globe  and  books  ;  and  here  was 
her  sister's  little  work-stand,  whose  deep 
green-baize  drawer  held  her  crewel  work 
and  fine  sewing  ;  and  here,  in  a  cupboard 
in  the  white  wainscoting,  were  stored  away 
many  curious  and  delightful  objects. 


Salem  Cupboards.  95 

Miss  Mary-Ellen  disliked  to  have  her  be- 
longings handled,  and  during  the  inspec- 
tion we  were  seated  opposite  our  hostess, 
and  cautioned  to  keep  our  hands  clasped. 
This  air  of  mild  ceremony  only  added  to 
the  delight  of  "  seeing  Miss  Mary-Ellen's 
things."  It  was  in  this  cupboard,  to  begin 
with,  that  she  kept  her  shawls.  There 
was  one  of  creamy  China  crepe,  heavy  with 
silken  embroidery  ;  another  was  of  scarlet 
camel's  hair,  of  such  fabulous  fineness  that 
it  might  well  have  been  one  of  those  fairy- 
tale fabrics  which  were  so  easily  tucked 
away  in  a  nutshell.  In  our  eyes,  however, 
the  most  beautiful  were  a  pair  of  lovely 
shoulder  shawls  from  Canton,  which  dwelt 
in  scented  seclusion  in  a  sandal- wood  box. 
They  were  always  called  "  the  pina  shawls," 
but  their  softness  was  unlike  the  wiry  tex- 
ture of  any  pina  cloth.  One  was  white, 
with  the  clear  and  dazzling  whiteness  of 
spun  glass,  the  groundwork  as  sheer  as  a 
frost  web,  and  the  pattern  of  silvery  lilies 
gleaming  with  a  silky  sheen.  The  com- 


g6  Salem  Cupboards. 

panion  shawl  was  of  a  charming  shade  of 
rose-pink,  and  this  was  also  shot  through 
with  a  design  of  silken  flowers.  These 
shawls,  our  friend  told  us,  she  wore  with 
her  black  satin  gown  when  she  gave  a 
"  tea-company  ;  "  and  she  added  cannily, 
while  putting  them  to  bed  in  their  folds  of 
soft  Chinese  paper,  that  she  always  wore 
them  by  turns,  so  that  one  should  last  just 
as  long  as  the  other. 

On  the  second  shelf  of  the  cupboard 
was  a  small  tea-chest,  which  was  appar- 
ently full  of  certain  strange  beads.  Our 
hostess  could  not  remember  whether  her 
great-uncle  had  said  that  they  had  been 
brought  from  Canton  or  Calcutta,  but  she 
knew  that  they  came  from  somewhere  in 
the  magical  East.  Each  bead  was  of  the 
size  of  a  large  pea,  and  was  grooved  lon- 
gitudinally. They  were  made  of  a  fine  clay, 
and  were  dull  blue  in  color,  with  an  odd 
glistening  effect,  as  if  silver  dust  might 
have  been  mixed  with  the  clay.  They 
were  perfumed,  and  when  they  became 


Salem  Clipboards.  97 

warm  in  the  hand  or  on  the  neck  gave  forth 
a  musky  sweetness,  faint  and  enchanting. 
Miss  Mary-Ellen  gave  us  each  a  string  of 
these  beads,  and  I  never  happen  upon 
them  to  this  day  without  being  touched  by 
a  sense  of  mystery.  They  suggest  strange 
Hindoo  rites,  Nautch  dances,  and  women 
with  dusky  throats  ;  they  never  have  lost 
the  suggestive  charm  of  that  Orient  from 
whence  they  came. 

Among  the  most  pleasing  of  Miss  Mary- 
Ellen's  relics  were  her  fans,  of  which  she 
possessed  a  variety.  There  was  one  of 
carved  sandal-wood  inlaid  with  pearl  and 
silver,  and  one  of  ivory,  as  fragile  as  yellow 
lace  ;  but  our  delight  was  an  old  French 
fan  of  light  blue  silk,  whereon  a  little  mar- 
quis in  silver  and  pink  offered  a  rose  to 
a  dainty  marquise  in  puffs  and  patches, 
while,  just  beyond,  three  maids,  with  arms 
entwined,  forever  danced  a  minuet  measure, 
and  about  all  were  pale  garlands  of  faded 
roses  and  little  naked  Loves.  We  loved 
the  pretty  marquise  and  the  dancing  trio, 


98  Salem  Cupboards. 

and  much  preferred  this  fan  even  to  the 
Chinese  one  of  white  feathers,  oddly  dec- 
orated with  little  leaves  and  blossoms  in 
tinsel  and  gay-colored  embossed  paper. 

And,  speaking  of  feathers,  I  am  re- 
minded of  one  other  drawback,  beside  the 
game  of  mental  addition,  to  the  complete 
enjoyment  of  our  visits  to  this  pleasant 
house.  This  drawback  was  Miss  Mary- 
Ellen's  parrot,  than  which  a  more  thor- 
oughly vicious  and  disreputable  old  bird 
was  never  seen.  As  far  as  I  know,  he  had 
absolutely  no  claim  to  respect  or  even  tol- 
eration, except  the  fact  that  his  mistress 
loved  him.  He  was  ragged  and  battered 
in  appearance,  and  his  colors,  like  his  mor- 
als, were  low  in  tone.  He  had  always 
about  him  an  air  of  having  been  out  all 
night,  and,  so  far  from  repenting,  of  rev- 
eling in  a  sense  of  his  own  evil  ways.  He 
had  a  wicked  eye,  and  an  unpleasant  habit 
of  roosting  upon  the  chair-rails  and  unex- 
pectedly pecking  at  the  legs  of  us  children. 
His  disposition  was  morose  and  vengeful 


Salem  Cupboards.  99 

He  loved  nobody.  He  only  endured  his 
mistress  for  the  sake  of  the  loaf-sugar  she 
gave  him.  Between  him  and  Miss  Eliza- 
Ann  a  deadly  dislike  existed.  As  a  gen- 
eral thing,  he  sulked  and  glowered  on  the 
back  of  a  small  sofa  in  the  corner.  Here 
I  suppose  him  to  have  spent  his  time  in 
reviewing  dark  episodes  in  his  past  life, 
possibly  with  some  degree  of  sullen  satis- 
faction. Occasionally  he  varied  this  occu- 
pation by  making  a  sortie  to  attack  Miss 
Eliza-Ann's  ankles,  for  which  he  enter- 
tained the  greatest  aversion.  I  never 
knew  anything  to  afford  the  least  amuse- 
ment to  Polly  except  Miss  Eliza-Ann's 
clutching  off  her  wig  ;  and  even  in  this 
case  I  think  it  was  not  so  much  mirth  at 
a  ludicrous  action  as  it  was  diabolic  glee 
at  the  dreadful  guy  the  poor  lady  looked, 
and  fiendish  enjoyment  of  her  sister's  dis- 
tress. It  is  certain,  however,  that  it  did 
cause  him  pleasure,  for  he  would  burst  into 
peals  of  rasping,  metallic  laughter,  sway- 
ing insanely  on  his  perch,  drawing  long 


too  Salem  Cupboards. 

breaths,  and  apparently  becoming  quite 
exhausted  with  his  mirth.  If  Miss  Eliza- 
Ann  made  an  attempt  to  touch  him,  he 
would  hastily  sidle  away  out  of  reach, 
and  resume  his  hoarse,  derisive  laughter  in 
safety.  Our  gentle  friend  was  made  very 
unhappy  by  these  exhibitions,  which  usu- 
ally ended  by  Miss  Eliza-Ann's  assuming 
the  red  bandanna,  and  seating  herself  at 
her  writing  with  an  injured  air,  while  Polly 
clucked  and  glowered  from  his  corner,  and 
Miss  Mary-Ellen  hastily  brought  forth  some 
new  curiosity  to  attract  our  wandering  at- 
tention. 

One  thing  of  which  we  never  tired  was 
a  pair  of  Chinese  picture-books,  with  paint- 
ings on  rice  paper  in  clear  and  brilliant 
colors.  There  was,  of  course,  no  attempt 
at  perspective,  and  we  were  much  enter- 
tained by  the  little  mandarins  walking 
calmly  about  in  the  sky,  quite  over  the 
heads  of  the  jugglers  with  their  yellow 
balls  and  the  women  under  flat-topped 
umbrellas.  A  pair  of  carved  ivory  chop- 


Salem  Cupboards.  lot 

sticks  also  appeared  during  the  display  of 
Chinese  curiosities,  and  Miss  Eliza-Ann, 
from  her  corner,  threw  in  a  few  darkly 
learned  remarks  concerning  Confucius,  to 
which  we  listened  with  respect  and  va- 
cuity. Miss  Eliza-Ann  was  always  ready 
enough  to  give  us  useful  information,  and 
she  was  generally  called  upon  to  tell  us 
about  a  curious  Japanese  bonze  in  painted 
clay,  with  naked  chest  and  stomach.  It 
had  an  ugly,  wrinkled  face,  and  was  squat- 
ted on  its  feet.  Miss  Eliza-Ann  explained 
all  about  it  in  very  long  words,  but  we  only 
gathered  that  the  bonze  was  a  holy  man  or 
priest,  and  we  secretly  thought  it  a  pity 
that  while  his  robes  were  otherwise  so  vo- 
luminous, so  much  of  his  person  should  be 
exposed  to  the  inclemency  of  the  weather. 
A  department  more  modern,  but  not  less 
attractive,  of  Miss  Mary-Ellen's  cupboard 
was  the  shelf  of  knick-knacks  which  kind 
friends  had  given  her,  and  which  she 
hoarded  in  little  boxes  and  baskets  with 
almost  childish  pleasure.  Many  of  these 


W2  Salem  Clipboards. 

things  were  oddly  trivial  as  gifts  to  a 
grown  woman,  but  the  truth  was  that 
many  of  Miss  Mary-Ellen's  friends  had 
evidently  never  realized  her  growing  up  ; 
at  least,  they  still  took  a  simple  delight  in 
bringing  to  her  tiny  fancy  boxes,  miniature 
fans,  baskets  of  pink  sugar,  and  micro- 
scopic books,  all  of  which  were  received 
as  they  were  given,  and  preserved  with 
great  care. 

On  rare,  memorable  days  our  hostess 
would  gladden  us  by  bestowing  upon  us 
some  of  these  desirable  objects. 

"  Let  me  see,"  she  would  muse,  regard- 
ing fondly  a  tiny  bird-cage  of  gilded  wire, 
or  a  barley  baby  tucked  snugly  into  a 
sugary  cradle.  "  I  have  had  this  five  years, 
and  it  has  given  me  much  pleasure.  I 
think  I  can  spare  it  now  to  give  pleasure 
to  somebody  else.  You  may  have  it,  my 
dear,  and  I  hope  you  will  keep  it  care- 
fully." 

The  only  two  of  these  presents  which 
lasted  us  for  any  length  of  time  were  a 


Salem  Cupboards.  103 

little  bonnet  of  yellow  sugar,  decorated 
with  a  wreath  of  miniature  roses,  and  a 
small  book.  The  bonnet  was  my  sister's, 
and  was  kept  for  some  years  in  a  box  of 
cotton,  until  one  hapless  day  we  found  it 
broken,  by  the  cold  we  always  supposed. 
Its  owner  shed  bitter  tears  over  the  loss, 
while  her  more  practical  sister  suggested 
that,  since  it  was  broken,  we  might  as  well 
see  how  it  tasted.  This  we  proceeded  to 
do,  and  the  result  was  pasty  and  disap- 
pointing in  the  extreme.  My  book  was  a 
small  black  volume,  entitled  Frank  and 
Flora,  being  the  history  of  a  pair  of  chil- 
dren of  such  an  aggressive'  and  rampant 
state  of  morality  that  but  for  the  fact  that 
it  told  what  they  had  to  eat  and  drink 
upon  every  occasion  it  would  have  been 
utterly  unendurable. 

We  always  loved  Miss  Mary- Ellen's  gifts, 
however,  for  they  took  a  grace  from  the 
gentle  giver,  and  a  charm  beyond  belief 
from  the  delightful  cupboard  which  once 
had  been  their  home. 


104  Salem  Cupboards. 

Dear  Miss  Mary-Ellen  and  her  sister 
have  long  since  gone  —  a  loving  but  in- 
congruous pair — to  a  better  world.  I  am 
quite  certain  that  the  same  sort  of  after-life 
could  never  satisfy  them  both.  The  quaint 
old  house  yet  stands,  but  it  is  occupied  by 
strangers.  They  may  be,  and  doubtless 
are,  the  most  delightful  of  people,  and  yet 
it  seems  to  me  all  wrong  that  they  should 
live  in  that  house.  The  world  is  out  of 
joint  with  all  these  changes.  I  would  not 
peep  into  the  old  mansion,  had  I  the 
chance,  for  I  like  to  fancy  everything  still 
as  it  used  to  be  :  yet  I  cannot  help  some- 
times wondering  who  owns  the  parrot's 
corner  now ;  what  furniture  has  deposed 
Miss  Eliza-Ann's  table,  with  its  books  and 
globe  ;  above  all,  what  these  new  folk  keep 
in  Miss  Mary-Ellen's  cupboard. 


MY  COUSIN  THE  CAPTAIN. 

HERE  lived  in  Salem  twenty  years 
ago  —  and  in  fact  the  remnant  lin- 
gers still  —  a  race  of  men  who  be- 
lieved in  nothing  else  in  all  the  world  so 
much  as  they  believed  in  the  supremacy  of 
their  town  as  the  great  maritime  centre  of 
America  ;  I  do  not  know  that  they  would 
not  have  said  of  the  world. 

These  were  the  old  sea-captains  and 
sailing-masters, — men  who  had  known 
Salem  in  her  highest  and  proudest  days  of 
mercantile  prosperity  :  when  her  wharves 
were  bustling  scenes  of  unlading  and  of 
shipping  cargoes  ;  when  the  harbor  was  the 
gathering  place  of  quaintly  rigged  ketches 
and  great  East  Indiamen  laboring  in  under 
clouds  of  canvas  ;  when  Derby  Street  was 
all  alive  with  captains  with  their  sea-legs 
still  on,  and  the  tall  warehouses  were 


106  My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

crammed  to  the  eaves  with  spicy  wares 
from  China  and  the  Philippines  ;  when  the 
merchants  were  bustling  up  and  down 
Water  Street,  hugging  themselves  with 
gratulation  over  happy  voyages  and  pros- 
perous ventures ;  when  Kit's  dance-house 
was  filled  to  overflowing  with  thirsty  sail- 
ors, intent  upon  spending  their  pay  quickly 
that  it  might  not  burn  their  pockets ; 
when,  in  point  of  fact,  old  Salem  was  old 
Salem,  in  the  halcyon  days  before  the 
great  tide  of  the  East  India  trade  had 
ebbed  away,  leaving  Derby  Street  stranded, 
its  brown  wharves  given  over  to  rats  and 
the  slow  lap  of  water  among  the  dull  green 
piles,  the  toppling  warehouses  transformed 
into  Irish  tenements,  and  the  harbor  sadly 
empty,  save  for  occasional  slow  barges, 
black  and  foul,  laden  with  coal  for  Beverly 
or  hides  for  Lynn. 

The  change  time  has  wrought  is  melan- 
choly, even  to  the  unconcerned  outsider, 
but  to  the  old  captains  it  is  like  the  de- 
struction of  Babylon  or  the  fall  of  Paradise 


My  Cousin  the  Captain.  loj 

That  the  writer  possesses,  although  of 
course  in  a  humble  degree,  some  of  the 
genuine  sea-lover's  regret  for  the  loss  of 
the  old  mercantile  glory  of  Salem  is  due 
to  the  acquaintance  in  childhood  of  one  of 
the  most  delightful  specimens  of  the  an- 
cient sailing-masters  who  ever  trod  deck 
under  foot,  or  brought  rich  cargoes  into 
Salem  harbor. 

This  was  Captain  William  Rockwell, 
who  by  virtue  of  a  distant,  connection  with 
my  family  always  went  by  the  name  of 
Cousin  William.  He  was  a  man  over  sev- 
enty years  of  age,  but  the  salt  of  the  sea 
he  had  so  long  traversed  had  preserved  in 
him  a  sort  of  immortal  youth,  and  he  was 
still  hale  and  comely.  His  face  was  ruddy, 
and  his  hair,  which  was  of  silvery  white- 
ness and  thick  and  vigorous  in  growth, 
was  brushed  back  without  parting,  and, 
when  its  length  permitted,  bound  with  a 
black  ribbon,  to  keep  it  out  of  the  way. 
The  question  of  length  of  hair  was  always 
a  disputed  one  between  Cousin  William 


io8          My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

and  his  sister  Susan.  The  Captain  con- 
tended that  long  hair  was  bettyish  and  in 
the  way,  while  Cousin  Susan  maintained 
that  cropped  hair  was  foppish  and  unbe- 
coming to  the  dignity  of  a  man  of  the 
Captain's  years.  As  Cousin  Susan  per- 
formed the  office  of  hair-cutter,  she  had 
rather  an  unfair  advantage  of  her  brother, 
and  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  his  hair 
was  generally  long  enough  to  be  bound  by 
its  ribbon.  His  eyebrows,  in  striking  con- 
trast to  his  rubicund  face  and  snowy  hair, 
were  as  black  as  if  newiy  penciled  in  cray- 
on, while  his  eyes,  also  black,  would  have 
stricken  awe  to  our  childish  souls  but  for 
the  humorous  spark  which  dwelt  within 
and,  in  conj  unction  with  a  benevolent  fore- 
head and  those  lines  of  by-gone  laughter 
which  inclose  the  mouth  in  a  merry  paren- 
thesis, lent  to  his  face  an  expression  of 
good  will  toward  all  and  of  resolute  con- 
tent with  everything  about  him. 

In  his  active  days,  Captain  Rockwell  had 
made  many  voyages  in  the  interest  of  Sa- 


My  Cousin  the  Captain.  109 

lem  merchants,  beginning  as  a  boy  of  fif- 
teen, and  leaving  the  seas  only  when  his 
hereditary  enemy,  the  rheumatic  gout, 
overcame  him  and  unfitted  him  for  further 
active  labor.  His  own  cruises  had  been 
chiefly  to  India  and  China,  and  his  time 
was  that  following  the  death  of  the  famous 
Elias  Haskett  Derby,  —  the  time  when 
William  Gray  and  Joseph  Peabody  were 
sending  their  great  ships  to  Cathay  and 
the  India  Ocean,  and  later  when  Captain 
John  Bertram  was  making  those  splendid 
voyages  whose  record  reads  like  a  fairy 
tale.  Cousin  William  had,  however,  not 
only  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  en- 
terprises and  the  state  of  commerce  in  his 
own  time,  but  he  had  made  a  study  of  Sa- 
lem's  mercantile  and  marine  history  back 
to  its  opening  chapter.  He  could,  I  be- 
lieve, have  given  a  clear  and  correct  ac- 
count of  the  voyages  of  Philip  English 
and  Richard  Derby.  He  knew  the  ton- 
nage of  the  prominent  vessels,  the  name 
of  the  owners  and  sailing-masters,  the  car- 


no  My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

goes  and  the  profits.  To  all  this  statisti- 
cal knowledge  he  added  a  fund  of  lore  of  a 
more  romantic  if  less  reliable  sort,  which 
made  him  the  most  entertaining  of  com- 
panions to  us  children.  It  was  always 
something  of  a  problem  to  us  just  how 
much  of  the  marvelous  adventure  on  high 
seas  which  Cousin  William  related  he 
really  believed  himself ;  and  this  we  never 
could  discover  to  the  day  of  his  death. 
The  old  gentleman  was  so  decidedly  testy 
if  questioned  as  to  the  veracity  of  any  of 
his  extraordinary  tales,  that  we  very  early 
learned  not  to  ask,  "  Is  it  really  true  ? " 

When  free  from  his  rheumatism  he  was 
of  a  social  and  friendly  disposition,  and 
fond  of  receiving  visits  from  us  children. 
He  instructed  us  in  the  art  of  making 
sailor  knots,  and  it  was  one  of  his  pet  vex- 
ations that  packages  from  the  shops  were 
tied  up  in  such  meaningless  and  slovenly 
ways.  I  can  still  tie  as  he  taught  me  "  a 
bowline  on  a  bight,"  but  I  never  do  it  with- 
out being  transported  to  Cousin  Susan's 


My  Cousin  the  Captain.          in 

tidy  back  parlor,  and  seeing  once  more  the 
bit  of  cord  on  Cousin  William's  knee  and 
the  blue  anchor  on  the  inside  of  his  hir- 
sute \vrist,-an  adornment  which  was  made 
in  his  cabin-boy  days,  and  of  which  he  was 
ever  afterward  somewhat  ashamed. 

If,  as  I  have  said,  Cousin  William  was 
in  good  health,  he  always  welcomed  our 
arrival  most  kindly ;  but  if  we  opened  the 
door  to  see  him  seated  with  his  bandaged 
legs  supported  upon  a  chair,  his  ruddy 
face  contracted  to  an  awful  scowl,  and 
to  hear  him  say,  "  Look  out  for  the  Old 
Man  from  Zanzibar ;  he  eats  youngsters  !  " 
then  indeed  we  softly  but  precipitately 
closed  the  door  and  withdrew  in  haste,  for 
we  knew  that  the  Captain's  tormentor  had 
him  in  his  grasp,  and  that  he  wished  to  be 
left  in  peace  to  battle  with  his  pain.  Who 
this  Old  Man  from  Zanzibar  was  we  never 
satisfactorily  knew,  but  the  very  vagueness 
of  gur  information  concerning  him  clothed 
him  with  added  terrors,  and  he  was  one  of 
the  most  successful  of  the  bogies  of  my 
childhood. 


H2          My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

Aside  from  his  attacks  of  gout,  the  Cap- 
tain lived  a  life  of  easy  and  methodical 
monotony.  He  rose  early,  breakfasted  at 
seven,  walked  down  to  the  Athenaeum  and 
back,  read  his  Boston  paper,  ate  his  dinner 
at  twelve,  then  took  a  short  nap  upon  the 
back  parlor  sofa,  first  carefully  protecting 
its  foot  by  spreading  across  it  a  thin  brown 
shawl  kept  for  that  purpose.  After  his 
nap  he  repaired  to  Cousin  Susan's  sitting- 
room  up-stairs,  where  he  read  aloud  to  her 
for  one  hour,  and  then  he  went  down  to 
Broad  Street  to  make  a  call  upon  a  mar- 
ried niece  and  her  children.  Tea  was 
drank  decorously  at  half-past  five  o'clock, 
and  after  tea  Cousin  William's  pet  crony, 
Captain  Eliphalet  Nicholson,  came  in  to 
spend  the  evening. 

Captain  Nicholson  offered  in  every  re- 
spect a  striking  contrast  to  his  host.  He 
was  a  thin,  dry,  weazened  man,  as  lively  in 
his  movements  as  a  cricket.  He  wore  a 
rusty  brown  wig,  and  always  told  us  chil- 
dren that  his  own  hair  was  blown  out  by 


My  Cousin  the  Captain.  113 

the  roots  in  a  terrible  gale  at  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope.  Although,  as  this  would 
prove,  occasionally  jocose,  his  disposition 
was  irascible  and  his  temper  quite  uncer- 
tain ;  wherefore  we  children,  little  syco- 
phants that  we  were,  tried  to  conceal  the 
fact  that  we  were  really  shy  of  him  by 
laughing  with  obsequious  eagerness  when- 
ever he  made  a  jest.  He  had  a  tart  tongue 
and  a  hot  and  spicy  manner  in  conversa- 
tion ;  and  I  think  it  not  altogether  un- 
likely that  the  many  vast  cargoes  of  pep- 
per which  he  had  brought  from  Sumatra 
had  had  their  effect  upon  his  disposition. 

It  was  rather  difficult  to  account  for  the 
firm  friendship  which  these  two  old  cap- 
tains had  for  each  other,  since  they  held 
the  same  opinion  upon  scarcely  any  points. 
They  were  forever  arguing  upon  this  or 
that,  and  never  agreeing ;  and  as  both 
were  somewhat  stubborn  old  gentlemen, 
it  was  no  uncommon  occurrence  for  the 
choleric  Captain  Nicholson  to  arise  in  his 
wrath  and  betake  himself  out  of  the  house, 


ii 4  My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

vowing  never  to  enter  it  again  ;  a  proceed- 
ing which  never  in  the  least  disturbed  the 
equanimity  of  Cousin  William.  He  knew 
what  to  expect,  and  he  was  never  disap- 
pointed, for  the  next  evening  would  see 
Captain  Nicholson  in  his  usual  seat  beside 
the  round  table  of  polished  mahogany,  as 
lively,  as  argumentative,  and  as  peppery 
as  ever. 

At  eight  o'clock  exactly,  a  maid-servant 
brought  in  a  tray  set  with  tumblers,  a 
lemon,  a  silver  nutmeg-grater,  a  silver  knife 
and  a  decanter  of  rum.  Captain  Nichol- 
son then  solemnly  spread  his  blue  and 
white  handkerchief  over  his  knees  and 
carefully  divided  the  lemon  into  halves. 
Cousin  William  with  equal  care  measured 
a  portion  of  sugar  into  the  tumbler,  and 
on  the  sugar  grated  a  shower  of  nutmeg. 
Each  then  measured  out  his  own  allowance 
of  rum,  and  here  the  paths  divided ;  for 
Cousin  William  contended  that  the  lemon 
could  not  be  properly  blended  unless  it 
were  mixed  in  before  the  addition  of  the 


My  Cousin  the  Captain.  115 

hot  water,  while  his  friend  stoutly  held 
that  the  lemon  was  ruined  in  flavor  by 
having  hot  water  poured  on  top  of  it. 
Time  had,  however,  somewhat  softened 
this  disagreement,  so  that  each  captain 
went  his  own  way  ;  and  there  was  a  sus- 
pension of  hostilities  while  the  two  old 
gentlemen  sat  seriously  sipping  their  hot 
rum  and  water  on  either  side  of  the  round 
table. 

There  was  to  us  children  an  inexhausti- 
ble fascination  in  the  conversation  of  these 
two  mariners,  who  had  come  after  years  of 
peril  and  gallant  adventure  on  the  seas  to 
the  snug  harborage  of  Cousin  Susan's  back 
parlor.  Even  when  they  were  not  actually 
telling  stories  to  us,  it  was  still  one  of  the 
treats  of  our  childhood  to  be  allowed  to 
sit  in  some  obscure  corner,  unheeded  and 
unseen,  and  listen  silently.  There  was 
about  their  conversation  all  the  "  mystery 
and  magic  of  the  sea,"  the  flavor  of  adven- 
ture and  danger  ;  there  was  excitement  in 
the  mention,  not  then  so  commonplace  as 


n6  My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

now,  of  strange  lands  and  far-away  ports  ; 
there  was  poetry  in  the  names  of  the  ves- 
sels, —  the  ship  Lotus,  the  Black  Warrior, 
the  brig  Persia,  the  Light  Horse,  the 
Three  Friends,  and  the  great  Grand  Turk. 
There  was,  too,  a  charm  about  those  car- 
goes. They  were  no  commonplace  bales  of 
merchandise,  but  were  suggestive  in  their 
very  names  of  the  sweet,  strange  odors  of 
that  East  from  which  they  came.  There 
was  food  for  the  imagination  in  the  men- 
tion of  those  ship-loads  of  gum  copal  from 
Madagascar  and  Zanzibar ;  of  hemp,  iron 
and  duck  from  Russia  ;  of  Bombay  cotton, 
of  ginger,  pepper,  coffee  and  sugar-candy 
from  India;  of  teas,  silks  and  nankeens 
from  China ;  salt  from  Cadiz,  and  fruits 
from  the  ports  of  the  Mediterranean. 

We  children  used  to  listen  as  to  a  fairy 
tale  to  stories  of  the  unlading  of  those 
great  Indiamen  whose  cargoes  actually 
scented  the  air  with  spicy  fragrance ;  but 
I  think  that  pepper  was  the  favorite  cargo 
of  Captain  Nicholson,  and  he  used  to  tell 


My  Cousin  the  Captain.          uj 

with  much  delight  of  the  secret  voyages  to 
Sumatra. 

"  Pepper,"  he  would  say,  "  grew  wild  at 
Sumatra,  and  nobody  knew  it  till  Captain 
Jonathan  Carnes  was  man  enough  to  find 
it  out.  Why,  sir,  I  dare  say  if  it  had  n't 
been  for"  — 


[Here  the  MS.  ends  abruptly.  The  notes 
made  for  its  continuance  are  scanty.  There  is 
jotted  down  a  reference  to  the  rescue  by  Cap- 
tain Ingersoll,  on  a  return  voyage  from  the 
West  Indies  with  a  cargo  of  rum,  of  the  mas- 
ter and  mate  of  the  English  schooner  Amity, 
whose  crew  had  mutinied  and  set  these  officers 
adrift  in  a  boat.  After  his  arrival  in  Salem  the 
English  captain  was  sitting  one  day  with  Mr. 
Elias  Haskett  Derby  in  the  counting-room  of 
the  latter,  and  while  using  the  spy-glass  saw 
his  own  vessel  in  the  offing.  Mr.  Derby  at 
once  manned  one  of  his  brigs,  armed  it  with 
a  couple  of  cannon,  and,  taking  with  him  the 
Englishman,  quickly  and  neatly  recaptured  the 
Amity. 


n8  My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

There  is  also  noted  the  pathetic  story  of  an 
old  sea-captain  whose  only  daughter  died  in 
early  womanhood,  and  who  on  every  anniver- 
sary of  her  birth-night  set  in  the  window  of 
her  deserted  chamber  a  lighted  lamp  to  burn 
through  all  the  dark  hours  as  a  token  of  his 
undying  love  and  remembrance. 

These  scattered  memoranda  follow :  — 

"  Dangers  of  coral  reefs  and  murderous  Ma- 
lays. 

"  The  old  fellow  who  recommended  his  house 
because  the  chips  would  not  rattle  in  the  parti- 
tions. 

"  The  dinner  of  the  E.  I.  Marine  Co.  —  Car- 
rying the  President  through  the  streets  in  a 
palanquin." 

There  is  also  a  note  of  an  intention  of  coia- 
menting  upon  the  fact  that  the  first  slaves 
which  came  to  New  England  were  brought  in 
the  Salem  ship  Desire  ;  of  speaking  of  the 
enormous  importation  of  New  England  rum 
and  Virginian  tobacco  into  the  west  coast  re- 
gions of  Africa  by  Salem  merchants ;  and 
there  is  a  reference  to  the  quaint  conceit  of 
Benjamin  Pickman,  who,  in  recognition  of  the 


My  Cousin  the  Captain.  119 

fact  that  his  fortune  had  been  made  by  the  ex- 
portation of  codfish  to  the  West  Indies,  and 
with  a  noble  disregard  of  the  obvious  jests 
likely  to  be  made  at  the  expense  of  any  aristo- 
cratic pretensions  on  the  part  of  his  family,  set 
a  carved  and  gilded  effigy  of  that  fish  on  the 
side  of  each  stair  in  the  front  hall  of  his  man- 
sion on  Essex  Street. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  had  we  been 
given  more  of  the  conversation  of  Cousin 
William  and  his  friend  Captain  Nicholson  we 
should  have  heard  discourse  of  the  doings  of 
the  Salem  privateers  both  in  the  Revolution 
and  in  the  War  of  1812.  One  so  familiar  with 
Salem's  glorious  record  as  Captain  Rockwell 
could  not  fail  of  the  ability  to  tell  with  zest 
and  completeness  the  tale  of  the  Gen.  Picker- 
ing, Captain  Haraden,  master,  which  had  that 
gallant  fashion  of  sailing  up  to  craft  beside 
which  she  "  looked  like  a  long-boat  by  the 
side  of  a  ship,"  and  commanding  them  to  sur- 
render to  an  American  frigate  with  so  absolute 
an  air  that  they  generally  did  it  on  the  spot. 
He  would  have  made  much  of  that  famous 
battle  between  the  Gen.  Pickering  and  the 


12O          My  Cousin  the  Captain. 

British  cutter  Achilles,  so  near  the  Spanish 
coast  that  a  hundred  thousand  spectators 
viewed  the  conflict  from  the  shore  with  as 
much  relish  as  if  it  had  been  a  bull-fight.  He 
would  have  reveled,  too,  in  the  deeds  of  the 
great  Grand  Turk  in  1815,  and  would  have 
had  his  joke  over  that  brig's  ungallant  wrest- 
ing from  the  Active  Jane  of  her  "  seven  bags 
of  specie,  containing  14,000  mill  rees,"  and 
still  more  cruel  scuttling  her  afterward.  He 
would  have  repeated  tales  of  suffering  told 
him  by  sailors  held  in  slavery  by  the  fierce  Al- 
gerines,  while  of  pirates  and  strange  escapes 
and  monsters  of  the  deep  or  of  wild  lands  his 
knowledge  must  have  been  inexhaustible.  He 
must  have  known  the  tonnage  and  the  rig  of 
all  the  proud  craft  set  afloat  by  Retire  Becket 
and  Enos  Briggs,  and  he  was  probably  not 
without  a  decided  personal  opinion  of  all  the 
masters  who  had  sailed  therein. 

How  much  or  how  little  of  this  it  was  Eleanor 
Putnam's  intention  to  set  down  it  is  impossi- 
ble now  to  determine.  What  was  written  is 
little  more  than  an  introduction  to  what  was 
intended ;  but  to  this  and  to  all  death  made 
an  end.] 


A     000024151     3 


